


Adore you

by Chiisanafukuro (makuro)



Series: You're the one I wanna grey with [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ALL OF THE GALRA CULTURE, Adoption, Dorks in Love, Established Relationship, Foster System, Kid Fic, M/M, Marriage, Post S8, SHEITH - Freeform, Shiro has Feelings about Parenthood, Wedding, allurance, ryan/hunk, they're so in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-01-16 15:45:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 41,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18524602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makuro/pseuds/Chiisanafukuro
Summary: or "MY BIG FAT GALRA WEDDING"Keith and Shiro are getting married. In six weeks. Galra style which has Shiro vividly remembering a classic movie about traditional wedding shenanigans. Ending a war for the universe felt less complicated.So of course Keith goes on a mission. And comes back with something.Someone.A kid.It's a kid.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this was born out of two things 
> 
> 1\. I LOVE WORLD BUILDING and the Galra being a ceremony heavy, class laden, five million rules to everything people just seemed right. And more importantly fun. For me, not Shiro and Keith. 
> 
> 2\. I wanted to see Shiro being the one with reservations about kids. It stands to reason he didn't give them serious consideration before, and we've only seen him interact with teens and up. Who knows how he'd been with a small who he can't communicate with >:)

“You have your backup communicator?” 

“Yes.” 

“And your Bay—”

“Shiro.” 

“Look. I know you have to take this mission but we’re only a little over a month out—” 

“Shiro.” 

“—and you _know_ how these outer reach missions can get. What with the pirates. And that fringe faction Zethrid just came across—”

“ _Shiro_.” 

“—I’m just saying that if anything happens I want you to be—ow!” Shiro rubbed over the spot where Keith had thwapped him on the chest. “Babe, you have your gauntlets on!” 

“Yes, I’m aware.” Keith pushed a hand through his bangs and did his best not to mess up the intricate braid Shiro had woven this morning. It was possibly the most elaborate engagement braid there was. He’d insisted on practicing it, since they’d need it for the days leading up the the ceremony itself. Keith knew it was just a ruse to delay him getting in his ship and leaving for the covert mission. 

Shiro had almost talked him into taking Black. For a covert operation. Keith still couldn’t believe he’d been about to do it. 

“When did you become the paranoid one, huh?” He smoothed his hands over Shiro’s chest. “I’ll be fine. It’s a recon mission. At most, if we find anything, a small rescue operation. I’ll have Acxa at my back the whole time.”

Shiro scoffed. “She forged documents for you when you were sick.”

“She kept me from hurting myself _more_ ,” Keith said, emphasizing it with another whack to his fiancé’s sternum. Shiro yelped and glared at him. “Shiro, I’ll be fine. This is a ten day mission, tops. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Shiro sighed and reeled him in. “I just hate you leaving so close to our wedding.” 

“Why are you so jittery, you’re the one who’s done this before.” Keith laughed and pressed his forehead against Shiro’s, soaking him in for a last moment. 

“That run didn’t go so well. I want to avoid any repeat mistakes,” Shiro murmured. “This is also the first covert mission you’ve taken since we got together. Of course I’m worried.”

Keith kissed him soundly, mapping out the feel of Shiro to take with him on the road. “Don’t be. I’ve got this.”

“I know you do,” Shiro sighed. He gave Keith one last peck and pushed him off. “Go, be great.”

“You too. And don’t let Lance con you into babysitting when they get here. We both know how you get around kids.” Keith walked backwards, mirth in his eyes until he had to turn around to get on the ship. The Wolf zapped in beside him, dwarfing Keith with his size. Keith tried insisting that he stay with Shiro, but Shiro had won that battle, claiming that the Wolf was better where he could help Keith. 

Shiro watched the ship take off from the landing pad. A wormhole opened up above them in the outer atmosphere, the blue-violet haze of it visible through the Daibazaal-sunrise peached clouds. 

Shiro felt his gut clench watching Keith leave. He didn’t want to have this stress just before they got married. Keith was dedicated to his work, and to be honest, so was Shiro. There had been unusual activity in a mostly quiet quadrant. The more signals they had picked up, the more urgent the matter became. Keith going was a no-brainer. He was the best, and this mission needed someone who was the best. 

The sting of ozone in his nose and a faint whoosh by his side made Shiro groan. “Damnit, Keith.” 

Beside him the Wolf barked and licked his hand. 

 

Tick. 

Tick. 

_Tick_. 

Shiro continued to stare at the clock for a lack of anything better to do. The best part of peacetime was relatively little grief, compared to what his life had been like. The worst part was that petty things started to be prominent problems. 

Right now it was a border dispute between two clans on the south side of the continent. T’hal Clan claimed it was their ancestral home. Uktar claimed they’d been the last ones using the land before the comet ripped Daibazaal apart. None of the clan elders were still alive to confirm or deny. 

_Ping._

Shiro startled at the new noise. He hoped it was a message from Keith. It was Kolivan. 

_‘Ritual combat is going to be the easiest way to solve this.’_

Shiro groaned. Galra. 

_‘That’s gotta get cleared with the Coalition. It’ll take at least a quintant.’_

_‘You think they will move on each other before then?’_

Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose. Violence had nearly erupted at the last three meetings alone. _‘Yes. I’d rather we keep trying to dig up records. I have a feeling the Uktar may have the stronger claim, we just need proof.’_

He tapped out a few more scenarios with Kolivan until the other was truly moved away from the ritual combat idea. The Coalition was invested in a renewed Daibazaal, not a rehash. It was harsh, with the reparations and every eye in the universe on them. But until ritual combat could stay _just that_ , and not turn into a clan war, Shiro didn’t want to risk it. 

He knew Krolia wouldn’t want to either. She was on Altea for a conference right now, due to come back with just about everyone else in tow. 

Two months. 

Shiro looked down at the luxite band around his finger. It was inlaid with an iridescent purple stone local to Daibazaal that Shiro had no hope of ever correctly pronouncing. The inside was engraved with runes of love and devotion. Keith had forged it himself. 

Shiro ran his fingers over the warm metal. Across the room the Wolf whined. 

“I know buddy, I’m gonna miss him while he’s gone, too.” 

The Wolf huffed and popped out of the room. Shiro wondered if he was going to go terrorize Kolivan or Zethrid. Kolivan snuck him treats, so there was a high probably he was there, trying to wheedle some out of the Governor.

Shiro tried to work. The datapad next to his elbow stayed silent, and that was more distracting than it going off every five seconds. 

It was only a varga early. He packed up his things and locked up his office. Might as well get home and start on dinner-for-one instead of staring uselessly at his office wall. 

Outside in the hall the gunmetal and violet motif he’d tried hard to erase from his office came back. Even now walking out it hit him with the ghost of panic. The violet was cut with indigo and blue now, a change the government had made to signal the new regime. It helped somewhat, but the knee-jerk reaction was hard to tap down. 

Shiro closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was going to have to up his anxiety meds while Keith was gone. The empty bed wasn’t going to help much either. He opened his eyes and let his breath out slow.

The Wolf was trotting up to him from down the hall, a piece of dried meat hanging out of his mouth. He chuckled. “At least I’ll have you to cuddle.” _Oh_. Shiro felt like smacking himself. The Wolf tilted his head at him, like it was obvious why he was here and not with Keith. “Yeah buddy, I see what he did now too. Come on, we’re going home.” 

The government building had a distinctly softer design than the flashes of Daibazaal-past Shiro had seen from the Black Lion. More sloping curves and less points. Krolia said it was a callback to one of their great periods of art. Shiro had a hard time thinking of the Galra as artists. 

He was starting to see how they might have been now, though. As the military disbanded soldiers turned to civilian life and civilian hobbies. Cooking, apparently, was a huge thing. Architects were bursting forth like pollen spores, trying to rebuild faster than other firms at an alarming rate. 

The varying styles were apparent as he walked through the city, hood up to help him blend in. The Wolf didn’t help in that matter today. Usually the hood got him through the city without much notice. He just looked like a runt. Galra were nothing though if not very particular about interactions between the classes. 

Some of that had dissolved, but millennia of classism was hard to erase. Keith’s standing and youth kept him from it, but Shiro used it when he didn’t want the stares. 

There were stares today. Polite ones that stopped as soon as they started. Double takes at the Black Paladin’s Wolf and his Mate. It rankled at first, that title. He was Representative Shirogane, not Keith’s trophy husband. It had taken Krolia the better part of two vargas to explain that the title wasn’t diminutive for Galra. 

_“They look to Keith. And you’re the one he chose as his partner. There’s great respect there, Shiro.”_

Luckily Galra custom also kept anyone from interacting with him. Privacy was huge to Galra and Shiro being Keith’s Mate made him at times untouchable to the public. He wasn’t ever sure how he felt about this. 

Today it was grateful. 

Their complex was tucked away on the outskirts of town. Communal residence was long a Galra tradition, and they shared their home with several others, including Krolia and Kolivan. Shiro scanned in at the gate and the Wolf popped ahead. No doubt he was rushing off to chase whatever small animals had crept into the garden while he was gone. The home complexes were built almost like a nest, small gardens surrounding with a larger courtyard garden or two nestled inside. Homes were divided up inside, each with a main room, bedrooms, and small kitchen. A larger communal kitchen and bath were usually a feature. Theirs also had highly secure command center for the leadership that lived here. 

He could see that Lud and Vrek were both home, their respective lights on. Shiro avoided the main entrance and went to his and Keith’s private one instead. He wasn’t feeling up to any interactions with others. Communal spaces ran that risk. 

Their quarters always felt colder with one of them gone. Keith had said it too when Shiro had to be off-world for a conference. They both did their best to keep trips short. In the nearly four years they’d been together they were still only halfway through the baggage they both kept. 

Those first months, after Keith had gotten better, had been filled with fights. You didn’t get over years of hurt in a few weeks. If the walls of the spare room could talk, Shiro often thought. He lost track of how much he’d been kicked out to sleep in there. Or the amount of times Keith went in self-exile. 

There had been a lot of make-up sex the first year. 

Now it had boiled down into a reliance on each other. They were careful not to let it build to a dependence—that kind of toxicity wouldn’t help a thing. Shiro had his safety net, and Keith had his. Shiro had his anxiety meds and meditation. Keith had grabbing whoever was available and sparring until he was sweat slick and falling over. They both had nightmares. The solution to those was usually crying it out until they fucked. 

Nearly two weeks on his own, though. That was new. Shiro distantly wondered if Keith had kept it that way. Once he’d been out of the woods, Shiro had started unpacking all of the trauma he’d tried to cover up with his marriage to Curtis. That had kept Keith on high alert and always around. Even if it got them into some truly stellar fights. 

Shiro shook his head and went to the kitchen. Frozen meals was the order of the day until Krolia returned with everyone. He wasn’t a bad cook, but he’d avoid it if he could. Keith had taken the day before off and done meal prep with him. Shiro smiled at the memory of Keith getting some kind of spicy sauce all over the counter when the Wolf tried to worm his way into the kitchen. He touched his thumb to his ring, running it over the metal. 

_Ping._

Shiro dropped the dinner he was contemplating onto the counter and fished out his datapad. 

“Hey,” he sighed when Keith’s face filled his screen. 

“Hey.” Keith looked tired, but good. His hood was up, braid trailing out of it over his shoulder. “Sorry I didn’t contact you sooner. We got more intel and it’s… a lot.” 

Shiro propped the pad up on the counter and went back to prepping his dinner. “Yeah? How bad?”

Keith rubbed a hand over his face. His fangs were poking out over his bottom lip. 

“Keith?”

“Bad. I called up Zethrid’s team.” 

Shiro’s gut dropped. “Keith—I thought this was an intel mission.” He tried to keep the anger out of his voice. He knew something like this would happen. 

“It was. But the team out there got more surveillance on the moon where they’re holed up. It’s that crime ring we’ve been trying to pin down. Looks like this might be one of their bases.”

Shiro removed his right hand from the counter so he wouldn’t crack it. 

“I know. I know. It isn’t… they’re small, this base. We know that much. And Y’Daa colonists on the moon are being held captive. We can’t leave them. Zethrid’s team is big enough we can ambush in and get the moon free, at least. Her team will stay there after Axca and I asses.”

Shiro shoved the dinner into the oven. 

“Shiro?”

He closed his eyes and started to count backward from ten. 

“Shiro—”

“Give me a tick, fuck,” he growled. He could hear the Wolf barking at something in the gardens. The oven was heating up and he could already smell garlic wafting out of it. The hum of Keith’s ship was coming over the call in static. He could feel the marble counter. He could see Keith worrying his lip even more. Five physical things. Breathe in. “Okay.” Breathe out. 

“It’s an outpost recovery,” Keith said, his voice flat and official. This was another method they’d worked out. Compare the current situation to one from the past. Something they knew. An outpost recovery in the post-war was nothing. 

“Okay,” he sighed. “Okay. That’s… all right.” 

“Am I sleeping in the spare room when I get back?” Keith chuckled, but there was a genuine hint of worry in his voice. 

Shiro snorted. “No. I was just thinking about that on the way home. Plus you can’t, Lance and Allura are going to be in there.” He smirked. “I’ve got no choice but to forgive you. Plus, this isn’t your fault. They need help. You can help them.” 

Keith smiled. It was the soft one only his family got to see. “I don’t like it either, Shiro. I promise I’ll be careful.” 

“I know you will.” He let out another long breath. “I’m going to up my meds while you’re gone. I think the stress of the wedding plus you being on a mission is going to make my anxiety spike.”

Keith hummed. “Why do you think I sent the Wolf back down?”

“Sneaky little shit. Thank you though,” he said. “It was probably the right move.”

Keith grinned, his canines back to normal. “It _was_ the right move, you grump.” 

“I get to be a grump. I’m going to have to rely on my right hand, which is not nearly as thick as your—”

“I am in the cockpit with him!” Axca’s voice rang out, a little frantic. 

Keith burst into laughter and Shiro was glad she couldn’t see his ferocious blush. “Sorry, Axca.” 

Keith said something to her in Galran and she responded with a string of Earth curses. “All right babe, I gotta go, we’re hitting the rendezvous point with Zethrid. I love you. I’ll update you as soon as I can.” 

“I love you too. Stay safe.”

Keith blew him a quiet kiss and logged off. 

 

The first night sucked. 

Two nightmares and the Wolf hogging the bed meant little sleep. The next day the clan dispute got worse via creative name calling and public slander. Kolivan and Shiro had to go out and in person explain to both elders that if they didn’t knock it off the land was being converted into commercial farming and they’d have to start up new ancestral homes from scratch. 

Keith didn’t call. 

The rest of the week was a blur of scouring old documents for proof that one clan had more solid claim than the other, restless nights, and Shiro jumping every time he heard a ping. He’d gotten a one sentence update three days in. Keith was fine, but they were still battling. 

Krolia made it to Daibazaal with Lance and Allura before he got a call from Keith. 

“He’s fine,” Allura assured him. She was juggling both of the twins while Lance unpacked the cribs with Krolia in the spare room. “If it was a covert infiltration and ambush, he can’t contact you. But he will, Shiro.”

“Yeah man, this is Keith we’re talking about.” Lance pulled up a long pink pole and frowned at it. “He’d rip the universe in two just so he could come home to you.”  

Krolia took the pole from Lance and deftly inserted it into a joint piece. “You know we’d get a distress beacon if something went really wrong.”

“I know, I just wish the stupid thing had stayed cut and dried.” To his side Allura was bouncing back from foot to foot. “You all right, Allura?” 

She jumped forward, hands going to one of the baby slings. “Usually Lance has one of them, here take Juni, please.” She scooped out one of the kids and dumped them into Shiro’s unsure grasp. 

“Whoa! I uh, okay. Okay.” Juniper was cradled against his chest in his left arm, his right hand splayed over her back for extra support. She wriggled, fussing only a little bit. “Okay.” 

Allura giggled, swinging Jasper around to a more comfortable position. “Shiro, you almost look frightened!” 

“Uh.” Juniper felt so small against him. Her entire body, even at six months, could fit in the palm of his metal hand. He felt like if he breathed wrong he’d crush her. She was moving, too, fidgeting against being smashed into his pec. Grabbing at his shirt, her little hands found more purchase than he thought they could. Her little nails were worse than when Keith forgot to reign in his claws. “I haven’t held—she’s so _small_.” He tried not to sound scared at having this tiny being in his care. He also tried very hard not to move. 

Lance pulled out several more poles of varying length. He made a face and pushed them at Krolia. “Shiro, relax, it’s just your niece. Juniper isn’t an imperial fleet.” 

“But. What if I, she’s so, and—” he looked down and immediately tightened his grip, to Juniper’s displeasure. She whimpered and pulled harder on his shirt. “Help.” 

Allura took pity on him. Keeping Jasper out of the way, she adjusted Shiro so he had Juniper splayed over his hip, most of his left arm supporting her as she made grabby hands at his metal fingers. “Allura, she’s trying to grab my hand.” 

“Let her,” Lance chirped. “She’s not going to hurt it. Most she’ll do is just not let your finger go. Stop freaking out, it’s a baby.” 

“I don’t want _it_ hurting _her_.” She was still trying to lean out of his grasp and get his hand. “I just—”

_Ping._

Shiro forgot all about the tiny life in his arms and yanked his datapad out of his pocket. “Keith?” 

There was an awful moment of static and then Keith was there on the other side of the screen. He looked tired, hair in total disarray. A large bandage covered the side of his face. Shiro felt his stomach drop. “Kei—”

“I’m fine!” Keith said hastily. “I’m fine. An explosion went off and I got knocked to the ground. It’s just a lot of little cuts and this was the easiest way to get them covered up. I don’t have a new matching scar on the other side.” 

“But you’re—”

“I’m okay. I’m fine.” 

Tension leaked out of him. He relaxed enough that Juniper slipped and he had to scoot her back up his side. 

Keith frowned at the motion. “Do you have a baby?” 

Shiro tilted the camera down. “Juniper is here! And Lance, Allura, Jasper, and your mother.”

“Glad you’re in one piece, buddy!” Lance shouted. “Shiro was losing his shit!” 

“I was—” Keith lifted his eyebrow and Shiro coughed. “A little bit worried. Yes.” 

Keith smiled. “I’m sorry I couldn’t call you before now. It was a rough go. They were using the colonists as shields so we had to play the long game with it.” 

Shiro closed his eyes. “How bad?” 

“Most of the colonists are fine, few injuries. Zethrid lost a couple of people, though. Same explosion that knocked me over.” A fang worried at Keith’s lip. He was taking that harder than he wanted to admit, then. 

“I’m sorry, baby.” He wanted to wrap Keith up and let him settle those feelings. That kind of guilt never fully left. On rare cold night Keith would still yell for Regris in his sleep. “How are the colonists doing?” 

“Dazed. Battered. But coming together. Most of them are half Galra, actually. A few pure Y’Daa or Galra here and there that ran things before the crime ring got here, but even then it looks like they’ve been integrated for decapheobs.” Keith swallowed and glanced at something behind his datapad, brows creasing. “I gotta go, babe, but I’ll call back the second I can. Don’t let Juniper wear you out, okay?” 

Shiro smiled, trying to mask the pain of having to hang up so soon. “I’ll be handing her to her mother or father shortly. I don’t think babies agree with me.” 

Keith hummed at that, tilting his head. “Looks good on you though.” He blew a quick kiss and the video cut. 

Shiro sputtered at the phone. On his hip Juniper burbled happily. 

 

Krolia finished the cribs with minimal help from Lance. Rather than watch Lance try and fumble around the assembly Allura and Shiro retired to the couch. With something solid underneath them, and a much shorter drop, Shiro relaxed enough to bounce Juniper around a little bit in his lap. She was endlessly fascinated with his hand. Allura had to coax him for a solid ten minutes, but he eventually let her grab at his fingers. His middle one was firmly stuck in her mouth now. 

“Your natural leadership led me to believe you’d be excellent with children,” Allura commented. “This wasn’t expected.” 

“You were too out of it when they were born to realize that I never held them,” he admitted. Keith had teased him about it for weeks. Unlike him, Keith had scooped both of the twins up without reservation. Time in the foster system and more homes than he could count left him with skills for small people that Shiro envied. “Today was the first time.” He smiled down at Juniper. Her bright blue eyes were focused on his finger, chubby hands curled around it. 

“Would you like to see Jasper?” Allura held the boy out. He was exactly like his sister save his aquamarine eyes. “I think they might be getting hungry anyway.”

Shiro extracted his finger carefully and made the trade. Where Juniper was nothing but wiggles and curiosity, Jasper was still, looking up at Shiro with wide, wondering eyes. 

“Hi.” Shiro said. He was nervous all over again. Jasper just looked up at him with a serene expression. 

Allura shifted her shirt and the sling around so Juniper was tucked against her side, popped onto a breast and happily eating. “Ancients, I can’t wait until they’re done with this.”

Shiro laughed, trying to distract Jasper with his hand like his sister. It wasn’t working. Instead he tipped himself forward into Shiro’s side and snuggled there, sucking on his own thumb. “Oh?” 

“I love it, and them, don’t get me wrong. But they won’t eat together. It’s a hassle.” She sighed and looked down at Juniper. “Such fussers, just like their father.” 

Shiro was still looking down at Jasper. He was watching his sister eat now, still calm. “He doesn’t seem too bad.” 

“He’s not crying,” Allura said evenly. 

The air fuzzed and a pop later the Wolf was with them. That made Jasper start, and when the Wolf nosed forward to inspect the baby his little face scrunched. At first Shiro thought he was going to laugh. Instead his mouth stretched for one long moment before an ear shattering cry burst out of him. 

“Allura!” Shiro picked him up and held him. Jasper squirmed and wailed. “Allura, what do I do!” 

Allura was busy trying to keep Juniper focused on eating. Shiro panicked, now sure that he was going to traumatize the poor kid, but he was deftly plucked from Shiro’s hands by his father. 

Lance twirled easily with Jasper in his arms, bouncing and cooing at him. “Aw, mijo, what happened? Did Kosmo scare you? Did the big bad space wolf come? Huh?” He bounced Jasper away, hushing him around the room and away from the wolf. 

Shiro looked down at the Wolf. The Wolf cocked his head and whined. “You appeared out of nowhere, little ones aren’t used to that,” Shiro told him. 

“You see?” Allura said. “He’s a nightmare when he gets frightened by something. This one doesn’t even flinch.” True to form, Juniper was still eating. Her head was pulling Allura’s breast at an awkward angle while she tried to look at the Wolf at the same time. “The joys of children.” 

 

With the last call being cut off and post-battle, Shiro had assumed the next call from Keith would be longer. It was not. Keith had continuously looked at something away from his pad, and cut the call with an aborted ‘Sorry!’ 

Shiro was going to ask him about it the next time they spoke, but a similar thing happened. Eventually Keith reverted to texts, or short, exasperated calls. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” 

Keith huffed. “Yes, Shiro. I’m fine. There’s just a lot going—yes. Just wait a sec sweet—Shiro, I gotta go. I promise I’m okay, though. I’ll see you in two days.” The feed cut. 

Shiro sat on the bed staring wide-eyed at the pad. Keith was calling someone sweet. Sweetheart maybe, sweetie. Something that he’d never called Shiro before. 

The pad tumbled from his fingers. Immediately his head started racing. Could Galra bond with more than one person? What if it was like soulmates and Shiro _wasn’t_ his mate? What—

Shiro reeled. He had no idea what any of this meant. If the last thing Keith said was anything to go by he wouldn’t find out, either, until Keith got home. 

If he even still wanted it to be that. 

Morning light spilled out over their bed in bright oranges, highlighting the place Keith was not. The Wolf wasn’t even there, too excited about children to stay in bed past them waking up. Shiro was alone with his increasingly scattered thoughts. 

_Sweet_. 

All the furtive glances from the week. The short and shorter calls. His increasingly annoyed look during calls. Shiro knew the signs of a relationship suddenly on the rocks. These were looks he saw on Adam after Shiro applied for the Kerberos mission. 

He sat on the bed long past when he would usually get up. When he did rise his motions were mechanical. Splash water over his face. Ignore the comb he used to part sections of braid for Keith’s hair. Brush his teeth. Try not to think about how Keith liked the weird cinnamon toothpaste from Earth. 

The jar of Sart’Va oil they kept on the counter caught his eye. Even now, when he helped Keith comb it through his hair he thought about that first time. How hard he’d fought to prove himself, and how desperately sick Keith had been over him. Keith wouldn’t just find someone else. He’d spent years letting himself wither away because he refused to find someone else. He wouldn’t just give up for a new face. 

Shiro took in a long breath and let it out. Yes, something was wrong. Yes, Keith was acting strange and they would talk about it when he got back. Yes, Keith loved him. 

Shiro left the bathroom, collecting his worries and putting them in a box to deal with when Keith was home. There was no use in wild speculation and needless panic. 

The sound of children and Lance’s cajoling greeted him beyond the bedroom door. At least he wouldn’t be alone. Two more days, just two more days and Keith would be _home_. 

“Someone had phone sex,” Lance sing-songed when Shiro walked out. 

Shiro felt like something inside of him constrict. “No. He…” 

“Shiro?” Allura stood and went to his side. “What is it? Is Keith all right?” 

He sucked in a breath. Five things. Allura’s hand on his arm was warm. Lance was making a weird sputtering noise. The twins were smiling in their high chairs. Coffee was being made. Keith hadn’t barely looked at— “He’s fine. I just. There’s…” he shook his head. “It’s nothing. But I think the mission is going differently than expected. He’ll still be home in two days.” 

Allura frowned. “Are you sure?”

Shiro took a breath. “Yeah, I’m sure. It’s just wearing on me. Something is up with the mission too, but he’s not saying anything. I’m just making paper tigers.” 

Allura mouthed the words ‘paper tigers’ in confusion. 

“Panicking and making worries for thingsthat don’t actually exist yet,” Lance said easily. He hadn’t even looked up from trying to pilot a spoon of goo into Jasper’s mouth. 

“Ah! I see. How can we help?” 

Warmth spread through his chest. “Thanks, I think you just being here is enough. He’ll be home soon. I just need to distract myself.”

“Oh, we can do that. Wanna learn how to change a diaper?” 

Shiro burst into laughter. “I think we can find something else.” 

 

Two days were torture. Keith hadn’t been able to do anything aside from send short texts while they made their way back to Daibazaal. It meant restless nights, but only two of them. 

The morning Keith landed Shiro couldn’t be at the landing pad. There were too many colonists to be sorted and sent to medical facilities. Most of them it seemed would stay on Daibazaal. For that they needed paperwork and vaccines and a whole slew of other bureaucratic red tape. The chaos of it would be too much while Keith directed the Blades and the government’s ground team. 

It was early afternoon before he got home. The Wolf had popped out of their quarters to the delight of the twins and popped back in with Keith’s hand sunk into the fur at his shoulder not long after. 

“Hi,” he said. 

Shiro rocketed off the couch into his arms. “Hey,” he murmured, pushing his face into Keith’s hair. He smelled like ozone and traces of blaster smoke. “Missed you so much.” 

“Missed you too.” Keith sank into him, pulling Shiro impossibly close like he always did. 

“Aw, they’re so gross.”

Laugher shook Keith’s frame. “Fuck you, Lance.” 

“Hey! Watch your language! Little ears!” 

Keith jolted and pulled back. He looked sheepish all of sudden, eyes flitting over the Wolf’s shoulder. “Right, speaking of little ears…” 

Shiro followed his line of sight. It took several seconds to piece together what he was seeing. 

Sitting on top of the wolf was a small Galra. No. A child. A _little girl_. She was in rags, and there were bandages over her arms and legs. Her ears looked too big for her small head and they were flicked down in displeasure. 

“Keef?” She said in a small, small voice. 

Keith detangled himself from Shiro and reached up for her, bringing her easily into his arms. He said something soft to her in Galran. He nodded at Shiro as he said it. 

She curled tightly into Keith, half of her face covered by his neck. Her tiny claws tried to grip at his Blades suit, only managing to catch on the edge of his leadership regalia. Keith nudged her, cheek brushing against hers in a practiced motion. Clearly meant to comfort her, it did no such thing. She still had one wary eye trained on Shiro. 

Keith shook his head. “Yeah, I figured.” He cleared his throat. “Shiro, this is Vara.” He looked nervous, holding the little girl protectively there in their living room. 

Shiro was still trying to catch up to it all. The glances offscreen. Keith’s distraction. _Sweet…_

“Oh. _Oh_.” A breathy laugh bubbled up from his lungs. It all made sense now. “Vara. Where are her…?” 

“Dead. For a while now. She was the only pure Galra child there. Once her parents were gone the other families didn’t want to take her in. Too many mouths to feed already. She… she got bounced around a lot.” The pain that flashed over Keith’s face was intimate. Shiro knew why Keith had bonded with the girl. 

“I know we’re pretty full, but just until things settle more, can she…” Keith worried his lip. Fangs were out, the one tell he couldn’t control even now. 

Shiro looked at Vara. She was small, even for a Galra. He could see skin stretched too tight over bones. Her lilac hair was still messy. They’d need oil to get it back in order, maybe a couple of passes depending how long she’d been like this. “How old is she?” 

“They think three? No one is sure though. Her parents were killed in the first wave against the colonists. The others kept looking after her out of respect for them. There wasn’t much to go around though and… I can’t… I can’t blame them but—”

“She’s a child,” Shiro finished. “And I think I can a little bit.” Her parents give their lives trying to fight off a pirate gang but no family can consistently take care of her? Bullshit. 

“She can stay?” 

Shiro blinked. “Until we figure out how best to help her? Yeah, of course, Keith. I think Vrek might still have that bed from when Urdi was little, we can borrow that for—mph!” 

Keith kissed him hard, his free hand gripping Shiro’s neck. “Thank you,” he whispered against his lips. “Thank you. I couldn’t just leave her to get shuffled around any more.” 

In between them, Vara tensed. Keith moved back the moment he felt it, already apologizing to her in Galran. 

A polite cough behind them brought Shiro back to the moment. Allura and Lance were standing there waiting. Allura looked calm but Lance was tapping his foot, hands on his hips. 

“You couldn’t have told us you were adopting?” He gestured at Vara, scandalized. 

Shiro threw up his hands. “No! No, she’s just staying here with us for now. We’ll… Keith where are we going to put her?”

Keith looked up and Vara ducked back into the safety of his neck. “Our room?” Shiro leveled him with a flat look. “Okay, the office. But we may have to deal with her coming in for a while if she can’t sleep. She still has a lot of nightmares.”

“That’s fine.” But I need you too, Shiro wanted to say. He couldn’t though, not with a little girl who was clearly hurting. 

“Shall I go get Krolia?” Allura asked. “Perhaps she can help us all settle if Vara won’t be parted from Keith just yet.” 

“Please,” Keith said. He walked to the couch and sat down. Trying to get Vara to sit next to him was fruitless—she only dug in harder. “Maybe another Galra will help.” Vara mumbled something into his neck and he laughed. 

“What’d she say?” Shiro asked. He was still trying to fit her size together with the fact that she was three, supposedly. 

“Your arm is incomplete,” Keith chuckled. “I tried to explain it to her but I don’t know if she accepts what I said.” 

Shiro snorted. “Well, she isn’t wrong. There is kind of a chunk missing here.” He sat down carefully next to Keith, on the other side of where Vara was tucked. This close, he could pick up the slight vibration on the couch. He couldn’t hear it, not with how low it was, but Keith was purring, trying to calm her down. 

It apparently had a much better term in Galra to reference the action, but purr was still the only thing that remotely sounded all right. Rumbling was the only other word that came close to what Galra did, and what could express the action. 

Shiro sat and let the feeling of it work over his own nerves. Picking up on it, Keith rumbled a little louder, just enough for Shiro to pick up sitting next to him. 

He was home, and even if right now there was a bit of a snag in curling into Keith like a koala, him being back was enough. 

 

Keith was exhausted, but on high alert with the child in his arms, instincts running full blast.

Vara fell asleep in his arms not long after they arrived. It was fitful, as most of her sleep was, but it made it easier to address the room. 

His mother arrived shortly after she fell asleep. One look at the two of them and she frowned. He’d briefly mentioned Vara in his reports to her and Kolivan as government heads. Krolia was clearly not happy that he’d left out she was staying with him. 

Between them all it was decided that Allura, Lance, and the twins would stay with Krolia and Kolivan. At least to sleep. Their quarters were next door, so it wouldn’t be hard to go back and forth for meals or wedding preparation as parts of the ordeal got closer. Vara having her own room with just Keith and Shiro felt like the best idea at the moment. Too many new faces and she was liable to shut down. 

Keith had seen it firsthand when they’d taken the base. 

Rousing her for dinner had been another task. Once she was up she refused to leave him, clinging like a limpet. His mother hovered, trying to coax her away but she just growled at each attempt. It was an adorable little snarl, if he was honest. By that time the only person she allowed near him was Shiro. 

They ate in the living room, a simple meal of roasted meat and vegetables. There was fresh bread Kolivan had made, too, for ripping and scooping up the other foods. Keith fed Vara nibbles of what he grabbed. She’d balked at the spices at first, but would eat the meat as long as it was fully wrapped in the pita-like bread. She had no issues with any of the vegetables thankfully. 

Lance and Kolivan brought the kid bed from Vrek’s and transferred the cribs next door. Shiro set Vara’s bed up with fresh blankets and the softest pillowed he could find from around their space. 

“Keef?” 

Keith looked away from Shiro trying to decide between two different fuzzy blankets. “Hm?”

“ _Who is the arm-man?”_ Her Galran had an accent he wasn’t familiar with, but he’d started to compensate over the last few days. Sometimes he just wondered if the words were nonsense child words anyway. 

“ _He’s Shiro, my Mate,”_ Keith said. “ _I told you about him, at bedtime?”_

Vara poked her head out to survey Shiro. “ _He doesn’t smell like you_.” 

Keith chuckled. “ _I’ve been gone. He will again tomorrow_.” He shifted her so he could free an arm. “ _Look at his shoulder, do you see it?”_

She jolted and looked back at him wide eyed. “ _Bite!”_

The old bite was just visible from under Shiro’s collar. The puncture marks were small, the scar tissue flat and dark. He was proud of it. Ezor’s was too brutal, but she wore it like a badge, proud of her partner’s strength. Zethrid’s was just as ferocious. His mother’s was raised puncture marks, not so much for severity of the bite, but the simple fact that Kolivan’s teeth were huge. 

Kolivan’s mark was nearly a full, raised circle. Krolia did nothing by halves. 

Vara was rooting around in his neck. “ _What are you doing, small one?”_

“ _No bite!”_ She pushed back and frowned at him. 

Right. That. “ _Shiro is not Galra. His people do not bite.”_  He titled his head so she could see his right cheek. “ _He gave me this mark instead_.” 

“ _Why?”_

Because he wasn’t himself and this was how I fought him back to life? Even if she’d understand that statement it barely covered the mark. Shiro had hated at first that Keith claimed it was his bond mark. It took a long time to convince him that to Keith it was the moment their fates sealed to each other. _I go with you, to the very end_ , was what it meant to Keith. 

To Vara he said “ _It happened when I was helping him. It means I love him more than anything.”_

She seemed to accept this and curled back into his neck. She kept one eye on Shiro as he moved through their home. “Sheewo.” 

Bedtime came faster than Keith thought it would. They were both exhausted. After everyone had been seen out he took Vara to her new room. He missed that he wasn’t able to properly greet the twins, but Vara took precedence right now. 

He’d made her an herbal tea to help her sleep through the night, and told her stories about Red and Black to lull her to sleep. He’d been simplifying he and Shiro’s adventures, and all of the Paladins, for her at night. She fell asleep in his arms halfway through the story. 

The Wolf lifted his head from his post in the corner of her room as Keith tucked her in. “Stay here with her tonight. You can pop in if she needs me.” He pet the wolfs head and gently shut the door behind him. 

The main room was still a mess from so many bodies at dinner. The kitchen at least was clean, even if the rest of the place looked mildly ransacked. He turned away from it. 

Shiro was already turning down their bed, sweats hanging low on his hips. Keith stumbled in, the sight of their bed and his love made the exhaustion slam into place. 

Without a hitch Shiro swept him away from the doorframe and down onto the bed. Face first in a pillow, Keith groaned long and loud. 

Shiro laughed quietly behind him. “Knew that was coming. I can’t believe you picked up a kid to look after. Why didn’t you say something?”

“Dibtknowh’to.” 

Shiro knelt down next to him and kissed his shoulder. “What was that?” 

Keith turned just enough to free a coner of his mouth. “Didn’t know how to.”

“Mmm, right. It wasn’t at all that you thought I’d say _no_ and you wanted to make sure I couldn’t.”

“No! I just… _ohhh_.” He lost every coherent thought as Shiro worked the stiff braid free and massaged oil into his scalp. “Oh fuck, that feels good. I haven’t touched it in days.” 

“Yeah, I can tell.” Shiro tugged on a strand of hair. “I wouldn’t have said no. Not if she was only responding to you. I’m not gonna tell you to abandon someone who needs you, Keith.”

He tilted his head back into the pillow and mumbled what he hoped sounded like a sincere apology. It was the best he could muster. Shiro was rubbing oil into his scalp. He could never coherently function when Shiro was doing that. 

He was nearly asleep when Shiro wound his hair into a loose braid at the base of his neck. Like they always did now, Shiro massaged what was left of the oil into Keith’s back. Each knot he’d gained on the mission was slowly beaten into compliance. He was fully drifting when he felt the sensation shift. 

The firm press of fingers and palm was replaced with plush wetness against his spine. It followed down, down, down until hot breath fanned over his tailbone. 

“Shiro?” He turned just in time to feel his cheeks being parted. “Hngg.” Letting his head fall back into the pillow was the only available move here. 

Shiro kissed his thighs, the crease of his ass and leg, over his hole. Keith was very glad he’d made good use of his ships showers before coming home. 

Slowly, tenderly, he was worked open by Shiro’s mouth. Wet kisses gave way to loving, fat licks. Shiro kept the pace slow, almost tortuous, but not teasing.The fire of it punched out by how careful and tender Shiro was being. It was a slow, bone-deep heat. Keith shuddered through it, too tired to do anything by lie there and take what Shiro gave him. 

He whimpered when Shiro licked inside, tongue wriggling past muscle. Shiro explored him in bare inches, savoring Keith, humming around him as he was devoured. Keith could feel his cock leaking against his stomach and Shiro didn’t move to take him in hand. Keith wasn’t sure he could hold himself up long enough to do it on his own. 

Time lost meaning between Shiro’s fingers rubbing against his taint and working their way in alongside his tongue. They brushed at his prostate and Shiro licked around them. Keith moaned long and low, each pass feeling like it might tip him over. It never did. Shiro was endlessly gentle, stoking the flames but never letting them truly _burn_. 

Keith was numb with pleasure. The buzz in his head was constant, he floated in it, suspended on Shiro’s whims. The pillow was wet under his face. From his open mouth. From his eyes, tears springing forward. He’d never felt more exposed or cared for than when Shiro broke him open like this. 

Aborted noises were coming out of his mouth. He couldn’t stop them. Groans broken off into breathy hiccups. If he hadn’t actually seen the infinite void of stars himself, he’d swear it was expanding behind his eyelids right now. 

His body was pliant when Shiro’s floating arm snuck under his stomach and lifted him. It was just enough that his aching cock was free of pressure, hanging down between his legs. Red, hard, and wet. Shiro kept licking him open while his flesh hand sealed around Keith. With only a few firm tugs he came over Shiro’s fist. 

He would have shouted if he had the strength. Instead a weak little keen left him as he emptied into Shiro’s hand. 

Shiro had to carry him into the shower, scooping his limp form into his arms. “Did you sleep at all while you were gone?” 

Keith made a petulant sound, childish even in his own ears, and rubbed his face in Shiro’s chest. Shiro laughed and sat them down in the shower. Standing was apparently too risky. 

Somewhere between the shampooing his hair, and a final check that the oil was all gone, Keith came to enough and gave Shiro a very sloppy hand job. If Shiro’s groans were anything go by, it wasn’t too bad. 

Now, both boneless and exhausted, getting back into the bed proved a task. Shiro still carried Keith, but his gait was uneven, tripping almost. They collapsed into a ungraceful heap, curled around one another. Keith tucked himself tight against Shiro and fell asleep hard, the tension in his body finally bled dry. 

He was home. 

 

Deep orange light of Daibazaal morning spilled in over their bed. Shiro had been awake for a little bit now, just looking down at Keith snuggled into his arms. They hadn’t braided his hair last night so it was everywhere. Shiro had done what he could with his floating arm to get it out from underneath limbs and out of his mouth. 

Keith had his face pressed into Shiro’s chest, mouth barely parted. Soft half-snore half-purrs were escaping him. Shiro was happy to see that the wounds on his face were already healed, and other than this utter exhaustion, he was whole. He pressed a gentle kiss to Keith’s forehead, thanking all the stars in the universe that his came home to him again. 

Almost on cue the room filled with a static feeling and the Wolf popped into being at the end of their bed. That woke Keith up. The Wolf whined at him. 

“Mmhhff… m’still ‘sleep” Keith sniffed and pressed his face fully into Shiro. The Wolf whined more. 

“I think it might be Vara,” Shiro said gently, thinking of the child in the other room. 

At that Keith bolted up, violet eyes bright and alert. “Bring her.” He flipped the covers up after the Wolf popped out. “We put on underwear. Thank fuck.” 

Shiro laughed. “Yes, after last night you, half asleep, insisted on it. I had to put yours on for you, by the way.” 

“Mm, this is why I’m marrying you.” Keith leaned over and kissed him softly. 

Shiro smiled into it, catching Keith’s bottom lip with his own, just for a moment. “Oh? Because I cater to your incoherent demands?”

“Because you take care of me.” 

God, if the Wolf hadn’t popped back in he would have laid Keith out right there. Taken care of him a little more. As it was, the Wolf was there, a frightened girl clinging to his back. 

“Keef.” Her voice was tiny and muffle by fur. Shiro wondered how long she’d been up and all alone in that room. 

Keith shifted forward, opening his arms to her. She didn’t budge until he said something softly in Galran. She lunged for him then, burying herself in his arms and muttering into his chest. Her light hair was a tangled mess. Shiro could see where Keith had tried, and failed, to unknot it. They might have to cut it. 

Shiro fixated on that. It was easier than slotting into place how Keith was cradling the girl so tightly. Or the yawning fear that he had no clue how to interact with a being who could barely understand the world around him. It wasn’t that he hated kids, he liked them. But there had never been a reason to figure out how to interact with them. Kids hadn’t even been a factor in his future, what little of it he once assumed he’d have. 

Now there was a little girl, scared and broken, who would be staying with them for an indeterminate amount of time. While they got ready for their wedding. Which, thanks to Galra tradition and Keith’s standing, was going to be an _affair_. 

Shiro zeroed in on Vara’s hair. It was the only thing he had a handle on completely at the moment. 

“You want me to go get the oil?” He asked. 

Keith looked up from where he was rubbing his cheek against Vara’s. Jerked up, actually, like he’d been caught doing something wrong. Shiro frowned and waited for a response. 

“…Yeah. Yeah we should,” Keith let out a long breath. “I don’t know if she’ll pick up on what a familial thing it is just yet. But we can’t leave her hair like this.” 

Shiro squeezed Keith’s shoulder. “We don’t know how long a new family will take. We should send her off looking like she wasn’t dragged out of a war zone.” He stood to get the oil, missing the pained looked on Keith’s face. 

He handed the jar to Keith and sat next to him. Keith bit at his lip, fumbling with the jar. “I’ve never done this.” 

Gently, Shiro too the jar from his fiancé’s hand. “Ask her if I can,” he said softly. 

Relief washed over Keith. He leaned in and whispered in Vara’s ear and she blinked up unhappily at him. A nudge and some more sweet words later and she was looking at Shiro with wide, wary eyes. 

Her coloring was a little different from Keith’s. Where Keith’s irises were a vibrant violet Vara’s had lavender shot through deep plum, making them look at once lighter and darker. He smiled at her, shoving down the fear that came intrinsically to him when faced with someone so small. Keith helped out by tipping her into Shiro’s lap. 

Vara squeaked and scrabbled for Keith’s arms but he set her back against Shiro firmly. For someone so tiny her butt felt like spikes driving into his thighs. When she got comfortable she was all knees and elbows poking him at every opportunity. Keith giggled, actually _giggled_ , while he watched. 

“You’re not getting head for a week,” Shiro grumbled. “Go get the comb.” 

It took a lot of careful combing and almost the full jar to get Vara’s hair clear. Luckily they only had to trim the ends a little bit. Shiro working out all of the knots and matted clumps through patience and tenacity. Halfway through Keith moved in front of Vara, holding her little hands and telling her stories. At one point he started to sing to her. 

He rarely sang, usually only around Shiro or sometimes his mother. Shiro treasured each instance that it happened, holding them all close to his heart. 

Keith was still singing softly when Shiro left to wash his hands, a neat double braid curled into a bun on top of Vara’s head. She tittered with Keith, happy about whatever it was he was singing to her. 

The ease with which Keith interacted with kids baffled Shiro. Objectively Keith’s time in group homes made sense as to why he was good with kids, but the core of it was a mystery. He just gravitated to them without any hesitation. Like he had the rulebook to children wired in his brain and Shiro’d forgotten to pick up a copy. 

Vara was singing with Keith now, clearly making up her own lyrics. He listened to the sound coming in through the open bathroom door. Keith was going along with it. 

“You think she’ll take a bath?” he asked as he came out. 

Keith didn’t even hear him, he was completely absorbed in the little girl on the bed. They were playing now, Keith tickling her as she shrieked and squirmed. It was enrapturing to watch. A pang of loaning hit Shiro hard, watching Keith like that. He’d never made space in his head for children before, but maybe with this man he could someday. 

Vara would be a good tell. Test the waters as it were, if he could get her to trust him. He let his footsteps fall a little loudly against the floor to alert the pair. Keith was all smiles for him, but Vara closed off again. She didn’t flee to Keith’s arms when he sat down on the edge of the bed, though.

Shiro decided letting her be was the best option. He looked to Keith instead, holding up the comb. “Your turn.” 

Keith’s hair was much easier to get through than Vara’s, but the braiding took longer. Little eyes were on him while he separated out hair and carefully wove strands in and out of each other. Keith was pliant for him, used to Shiro tilting his head around has he worked. It only took the first larger plait for him to start purring. Out of the corner of his eye Shiro saw Vara relax a little, her knees splayed out instead of tucked tight beneath her. 

The final braid was tucked through the larger ones in the woven section. Shiro tied the whole thing off and cracked his fingers. “All right, you’re done.” He used his floating arm to return the supplies to the bathroom without getting up. 

Vara eyed his arm, and them him. Her eye skittered over his shoulder and then she looked to Keith. She crawled up into his lap and her little hand reached up for the scar on his cheek. 

Keith said something softly to her in Galran. She didn’t look any less wary, but crawled her way to Shiro anyway. Tiny purple fingers closer around one on his metal hand. Her grasp was stronger than he thought it would be. 

“Hi,” he said breathlessly. He was frozen by her, waiting to see just what she would do to him. 

“Shiwo,” she said, testing his name out. 

“Vara,” he said back, just as quietly. 

It satisfied something in her because she pulled herself into his lap and settled there, telling something to Keith with great authority. He snorted. 

“What’d she say?” 

“She wants food.” 

 

Two babies and a toddler was more than enough to keep the household busy. Add everything they had to get done for the wedding and Keith was ready to call it quits and elope at the Space Mall. 

“Why does it need to take so _long_ ,” he whined. Jasper was glued to his side, sucking on a portion of his shirt. Next to him at the table, finally comfortable enough to sit somewhere other than his or Shiro’s lap after three days, Vara was drawing. Allura had Juniper, trying to feed her some kind of food mush, while she helped Keith’s mother work out the details for the Declaration. 

“Because you need to make the public declaration—”

“Which is stupid.” 

“—and then the formal Declaration so you can get the Blessing. Keith, for all intents and purposes you are of noble class now. Hell, we were _before_ Zarkon tried to wipe out our clan out for being too close with Alteans. You’ve got to do this or it’s going to look like you don’t care about your heritage.” 

He reached over the table and picked up a rough sketch of what he and Shiro would have to wear to the Declarations. Light armor, Shiro with black and white, he with red and black. The mock-up of his hair was terrifying. Shiro might be able to ferret out what those braids were supposed to be doing but Keith got a headache looking at it. “Fine. Did you find any other leads?” 

Krolia and Allura exchanged a look. “Do you really want to try and find a family on top of the ceremonies? You have the Public Declaration in less than four quintants. And the private declarations _and_ your _feats_. Then you have to find time for the Blessing if you don’t do that too. Then the Union Rehearsals start.”

“Rehearsals for a three day ceremony,” Keith groaned. “I know, Mom. But the sooner we can get her settled the better. I… she can’t get attached.” He looked at Vara and ignored the awful twist in his gut when he did. “We have two families coming tomorrow. We can’t bank on them though.”

“Of course not,” his mother said tersely. She’d been tetchy about Vara since Keith told her he was looking after the girl. It had only gotten worse since coming home. “I would focus on your nuptials first. She’ll be fine until then.”

Allura closed up the jar of food loudly. Juniper burbled happily in the tense silence. “How is Shiro doing with her?” 

“Getting better,” Keith said. Shiro was with Kolivan getting his armor adjusted with Lance. Keith had gotten his yesterday. Vara had tucked herself into a corner with the space wolf while he’d gotten it done. He hoped that either the families tomorrow would work, or that she would completely warm up to Shiro, and vice versa, soon. 

The rest of their family gang would be coming later in the afternoon, and Shiro would swing by to get them then. Few though they were, they were going to have to do for Shiro’s ‘clan,’ Allura and Sam standing as the ‘elders’. Keith, on the other hand, would have the remnants of both Krolia and Kolivan’s clan behind him. And the Blades. He tugged the sheet outlining who would be attending the Public Declaration at Kral Xion. 

“We’re already bonded, why do we still have to do all of this?”

“It’s tradition,” Krolia said blithely. “And the Galra need to be reminded of our traditions that were good. Noble marriages were one of those things.” 

“Ugh.” Keith let his head fall into the table. Beside him, Vara giggled. In his arms Jasper squirmed.  “At least the Private Union will be what we want.” 

“Have you decided when you’ll do the cutting?” Krolia reached across the table and tugged at his braid. The split ends were getting harder to combat, according to Shiro, but he couldn’t tell. At this point he was ready to get rid of the extra length, too. 

Keith lifted his head and regarded the braid. It curled thick over his shoulder, a portion now resting on the table. The smaller braids woven in with the thick strands were a testament to Shiro’s patience. He’d started cataloguing the new braid he did in the mornings, going through the old books from Krolia _and_ Kolivan’s clans to recreate them. Keith had been meaning to consult with historians about using Shiro’s braids to update records. Lance had suggested posting tutorial videos. Shiro hadn’t liked that one bit, going off about how person and intimate the time spent braiding was. 

“Yeah, but you’ve been doing it with Vara too since she got here,” Lance had pointed out this morning when he brought it up again. Shiro shoved him out the door before Keith could hear the response to that. 

It was a very valid point though. Shiro wasn’t doing just a simple braid in Vara’s hair. He’d flipped to the family sections of his research and started practicing those in her hair. Braids symbolizing protection and love. Keith would have to make sure they weren’t there tomorrow, or there may be confusion with the families looking to adopt her. 

An angry tendril worked its way up his throat at the thought. He stomped it back down. Vara wasn’t his, or Shiro’s, and they weren’t even remotely ready for that conversation, or on the same page about it. Shiro’s disease had kept him from even thinking about children for so long, and Keith was fairly sure his time in the system had messed him up somehow for child-rearing. It was better that Vara be placed with a good family that was ready for her. 

“Keith?” 

He snapped up from staring at his hair, thoughts a tangle about ceremony and the little girl to his right. “Huh?”

“Cutting your hair,” Krolia repeated slowly, “when do you think you’ll do it?”

He sat back and let the braid slide back off the table. “Not sure yet. We’re thinking it might be that night though. It’s kind of been a… it’s our thing, you know? And I know you were the one who suggested it, but it’s always been kinda private for us.” 

Krolia smiled. “You’ll recall, Kolivan and I made the same choice.” 

“How much will you have to take off?” Allura asked. At the sound of her voice Jasper tried to crawl up onto the table for his mother. 

After clearing a path for him Keith let him, hands hovering the whole time just in case. “I think I want it back around where it was hitting my shoulder blades. I could wash it solo then without a lot of work. I might be able to just throw it up into a bun then too.” 

“No more elaborate braids then?” Allura asked. Jasper reached her and immediately started to paw at his sister for space on their mother’s lap. 

“No, not unless we’re going somewhere formal,” he said. He loved the braids and how much care Shiro took with them, but neither of them had realized that once they started they couldn’t _stop_ until the wedding. “It takes forever to get done.”

“That would be because your fiance is meticulous abo—oh. Hello, little one.” Vara had vacated her seat and toddled over to Krolia. 

“ _Who are you?_ ”

Krolia leaned down to get on eye level with Vara. “ _I’m Keith’s mother_.”

Vara considered this. “ _But your skin is different.”_

“ _Keith’s father was human, like Shiro,_ ” Krolia answered calmly. 

Vara frowned and looked back at Keith. “ _Where is he?_ ”

The sting didn’t pierce like it used to, but right now as he looking toward marrying the love of his life, it was there. He father wouldn’t be here, and while so many others who loved him would be, that killed him. “ _He’s gone_.”

Vara looked down and then back to Krolia. She went to her, slowly, sniffing the air, and when Krolia didn’t move she carefully crawled up into her lap. “ _My mommy and daddy are gone too. Do you want to color with me?_ ” 

Keith pushed the crayons over to his mother and steadfastly ignored her shrewd gaze. He didn’t need suspicions confirmed, not now. Not when there wasn’t a hell of a lot he could do about it. 

“Is everything all right?” 

He’d forgotten for a moment that Allura and the twins were even there. “Yes! All fine, she was just asking who Krolia was and about our relationship. I guess since she’s my mom she’s approved.” 

“Vara does seem rather… attached to you,”Allura said slowly. 

Keith said nothing and watched Vara animatedly color with his mother. 

 

The Kral Xion, for it’s name, looked very different from the Kral Xera. The hall was long with tiered seating along its walls. Behind them loomed tinted glass, giving the whole hall a warm magenta glow. Skylights above cut it with the bright Daibazaal day in peach and orange. 

“This is insane,” Lance whispered. Behind him Hunk and Pidge were examining the hidden tech all around the hall. 

Shiro looked up to the main dias where he and Keith would be making their Declarations in a few short days. Already the banners for Earth and Daibazaal were hung there. On the day of, the dias would be covered in floral arrangements from each homeworld, and Altea on the lower steps. Dignitaries from coalition planets would be coming to show their support as well, even if they could not weigh in on the ceremony. 

“This is pretty crazy, Captain,” Kinkade said next to him. “And this is part what of how many?”

“Like, twelve,” Shiro said. He was focusing on one part at a time or he was going to lose it. “And it’s Ambassador now, Ryan. Or, you _could_ just call me Shiro.”

“Nah, I’m good. Thanks Cap,” Ryan said with a smirk. “Man. Lance didn’t have to do half of this and he married a god tier princess.”

“The perk of which was that my princess got to call the shots on rules. Keith, despite the hair, the eyelashes, and the pretty pout, is not in fact a princess. He can’t call which rules to chuck.” Lance put his hands in his pockets and leaned over. “Do you think if you fuck up they’re going to hit you with a whip like that governess did to Hunk?”

“Not cool man!” 

“No,” Shiro snorted. “The Clan Elders will just reject the Union and Keith and I will have to disgracefully elope somewhere.” 

“You’re thinking about doing just that aren’t you?”

“You have no fucking idea how much,” Shiro breathed. “You saw the armor. That’s just for the two _public_ ceremonies.” Shiro didn’t want to think about the private ones just yet. While they did hold less of a chance of someone trying to fuck with them, they were also far more personal. 

His feat was something he wasn’t sure he could honestly pull off. Keith got tight-lipped and twitchy anytime that portion of the private declaration got brought up. Shiro wasn’t even sure what he was doing _was_ a feat that would measure up, but anything else that showed his dedication felt like it would trigger a million different things in him. Dedication for Galra usual meant combat. He figured Keith was feeling the same since he’d shaken Shiro out of sleep some months back to swear that their feats would have nothing to do with fighting anything _or_ displays of strength.  

Kolivan hadn’t been pleased when they told him, but Krolia had solidly agreed with them. 

Shiro was still positive he was going to fail his no matter what. He took a last look around the hall and started to shepherd his people out. “Come on, dinner awaits.” 

They piled into the transport and were carted off to the home complex. Hunk was busy pointing out buildings and historical tidbits to Ryan as they drove. Shiro dimly wondered just how different this Daibazaal was from the original. Records had preserved what it once looked like, before the planet was torn apart. Shiro interjected when Hunk wasn’t sure how to answer a question. It was strange, usually he felt like an outsider among the rehomed Galra. Explaining them and their city to someone else made him realize just how integrated he actually was here on Daibazaal. He wondered when it had gone from ‘the place Keith is’ to ‘home’. 

Ryan was endlessly fascinated with the home complexes when they started to pass them by. He pulled out his camera and started filming them, moving closer to Shiro for the voiceover explanations. 

“Families are usually together, but during the war they got split up onto ships. Children got sent to training facilities incredibly young if you were part of the main fleet. Outlying fleets were a little more lax with how the soldiers faired with their families, but not by a lot. A lot of these complexes are a mashup of blood families and found families. Some, especially bigger ones like that building back there, are full squadrons that are still trying to adjust.”

“Civilian life must be hard after ten thousand years of fighting,” Ryan said. “How is it all coming along?”

“Better than anticipated,” Shiro said honestly. “Quintessence messed with a lot of things, in this case almost for the better. Typically this would be the fourteenth generation since the planet was first destroyed. But because of the quintessence medical treatments, some clans have only seen five generations pass, with many of the original generation elders still around. Krolia and Keith’s clan, the Privak, steered clear of the quintessence from the start so they’ve actually got thirteen generations between. Their ancestral home wasn’t even on Daibazaal by the time it all went down. It’s on a outer moon that Zarkon bombed the hell out of.”

Kinkade turned the camera to Shiro. “Why did he bomb it?”

“They’d been close to the Alteans for generations before the comet struck,” Shiro explained. “They have a fair amount of Altean blood in them, for that matter. It’s why Keith can ‘shift’ his features. It’s also why they never took quintessence treatments—never trusted it. It’s why Krolia is one of the few left without the quint-eyes.”

“The full yellow ones, you mean?” Kinkade clarified. 

“Right. There are a few others like that, but they are hard to find. Vara, the little girl we’re taking care of, doesn’t have them either so we can assume her parents were also from one of the clans who didn’t partake as much.” 

Kinkade turned back to the city. “So clans with few generational gaps between the original Daibazaal can now help realign their culture to how it was before the comet crash?”

“Yes,” Shiro leaned over and pointed out one of the obelisks in the distance. “A lot of them have taken on priesthood, which here is more of a spiritual leader slash government record keeper. They’re helping direct things into whatever sense of normalcy we can get.”

“So no major fights?”

Shiro snorted. “Plenty, but it’s working out for the most part. Come back to my side of the transport, you can get a shot of our complex.”

Unloading into the complex was chaos. The twins cried for Pidge when they saw them, Allura immediately having to give them up. She wasn’t too upset about it. Coran was piling things into the main gate and courtyard to be sorted into different units later. A few were designated empty for delegate visits which is where Ryan and Hunk were going in one with the Holts cramming into the other. Everyone else representing Earth would be received tomorrow and shown to hotels closer to Kral Xion, along with other Coalition representatives. 

Shiro was so lost in trying to sort out the net few days he didn’t feel Keith come up behind him. He startled at the hand on his back. 

“If you’re this nervous already, I don’t want to see you before the Union,” Keith chuckled. He pulled Shiro back to him and kissed the back of his neck. “How’d it go?”

“Long. I miss our Paladin armor, it wasn’t half as heavy. How’s everything here?” He turned to pull Keith properly under his arm. 

“Good, still going over seating arrangements with mom. Who, by the way, got Vara to warm up to her today.” Keith looked very pleased about that. 

Shiro tracked Keith’s gaze to where Vara was watching Pidge with the twins. She hung back from the fun, even though it looked like she wanted to join. Pidge kept an eye on her, glancing to her every now and again but not pushing to have her come over. Shiro worried for her. “We’ve got the families tomorrow, right? Your mom and Kolivan are taking care of getting people who come for us?”

“All set,” Keith said. Shiro felt him tense at the mention of the families. Shiro wondered for the millionth time if it wasn’t better to let the government handle this, or even just hold of on it until after the wedding. Keith kept insisting that holding off would make things worse for Vara. Similarly, Shiro knew he couldn’t ask Keith to let the girl be taken care of by an already tenuously functioning bureaucracy. There was no reality where Keith would be okay with that. 

“We’ll get her settled,” Shiro said against Keith’s temple. “And she’ll be safe, and happy, and we won’t settle for anything less.” 

Keith let out a long breath. “I know.” He squeezed Shiro’s waist and moved away. “Okay, gotta start dinner. We’re just barbecuing out here basically with all the people here. Help me get the grills out?” 

 

_Fire. There was fire everywhere. Rigging and screeching metal and pain pain pain—_

“KEITH!” 

He shot up with a gasp, lungs screaming for air, but the moment he gulped it down he choked. His vision was completely blurred but he could feel soft sheets under his fingertips. His claws caught on the fibers every time his hands clenched. A heavy hand was soothing over his back, another one was on his leg, squeezing gently. Words were coming through like static but there was someone speaking to him, saying his name over and over but his throat was still tight and the shield—no the falling platform? The _danger_ was still swimming in front of his eyes. 

“Keith, baby, breathe with me.” A chest replaced the hand, tight against his back. “You’re safe. We’re home, in bed. C’mon baby, come back to me.” 

He blinked hard and focused on the chest behind him, his stuttering lungs trying to keep pace with it. Oxygen flooded slowly back through his system clearing the fragments of nightmare that still clung. “Fuck,” he gasped. 

“Hey, hey it’s okay. We’re okay.” Shiro was peppering kisses all over his sweat damp neck. 

Keith groaned and slumped down between his knees, heart still racing. “ _Fucking hell.”_

“Babe?” 

He opened his mouth but his stomach got there first. He barely shoved off the bed in time to reach the toilet, all of dinner coming back up. Shiro was there in seconds, holding his braid far away from his face. 

When it finally felt like it was all over he sat down on the cool tile and closed the toilet lid. Shiro flushed it for him and got a clean cloth to wipe his face. 

“Thanks,” he rasped. Brushing his teeth would happen once he could get his legs under him. “The stress of this wedding is going to kill me.”

Shiro pushed stray strands of hair behind Keith’s ear. “Was that what the nightmare was about?” 

“No, Naxela and the Facility. Like, _together_. I don’t even know how that could be possible, but it was happening.” He rubbed at his eyes, trying to get the superimposed scenes out of his head. 

Shiro pulled him over into his arms and rocked them back and forth. With gentle fingertips he traced down Keith’s arms to his hands. Then back up and over again once he’d reached Keith’s still claw-tipped ends. The motion helped ground Keith back into reality. He didn’t get the panic attacks that Shiro did, or the flashbacks, but his nightmares more than made up for it. He’d never forget how often he woke up in Black after Shiro had moved to Green, bayard and luxite blades in hand and ready to fight, his mother across from him braced and wary. 

Keith hauled himself up to the sink once the last of the tremors faded. Shiro left him to rinsehis mouth out, going instead to straighten out the bedding. He was great at tangling sheets even with Shiro’s massive immobile form laying next to him. 

His hair was a wreck, the braid half pulled out in his thrashing. He took it out the rest of the way and grabbed the comb. “Hey,” he said, standing next to the bed, “could you…?”

Shiro looked up from where he was fluffing out the comforter. “Hm? Oh, yeah, sit down.” Keith sat, and Shiro worked through the little knots that had popped up. The new braid was a simple three strand plait. Just enough to keep it contained while they tried to get back to bed. 

They’d almost settled back down when the Wolf popped in, Vara clinging to his leg. 

“ _You were screaming,”_ she whispered, staring at Keith with wide eyes. 

Keith looked up at Shiro and Shiro shrugged, scooting back to make room without even understanding what Vara had said. She was up in the bed in seconds, burrowing into Keith’s arms. 

“ _Yes, I had a bad dream. But I’m okay now._ ”

“ _I don’t like bad dreams_ ,” she said. “ _They scare me._ ”

Keith gathered her close and laid down, sandwiching her between them. “ _Me too. Shiro gets them too sometimes, but we wake up and hold each other after and it makes it better_.”

“ _Will you hold me if I have them?_ ”

Keith nuzzled her cheek, the motion a force of habit now. “ _Of course_.”

“ _Always_? _”_

He closed his eyes and swallowed. “ _As long as I am able._ ” 

Shiro reached over and touched his shoulder. “Is she okay?” 

“Yeah, I just scared her,” Keith said. 

“Can you translate for me?” 

Keith searched his eyes but couldn’t discern what Shiro was trying to convey. “Yeah, sure. Go ahead.”

“Vara?” 

She lifted her head to look at Shiro. 

“Hey sweetie, he scares me too, when he screams in his sleep.” 

Keith chewed his lip but repeated the words back. In his arms Vara was leaning toward Shiro, face tilted all the way up at him. 

“But he’s okay. Sometimes we have bad things happen, and sometimes they stay with us. It’s why we make sure we have good people around us so we can protect each other. And I promise you,” he dipped down and smiled at her, “I will _always_ protect him.” 

Keith fumbled as he translated the last part. Vara didn’t noticed though, she was too busy squirming out of his arms. She went to Shiro easily, though he was a little more than clumsy getting her settled back against his chest. Her little hand took Keith’s and she nodded to herself, like this was the best way to carry on sleeping. 

“ _I’ll protect you too.”_

The feeling that had been growing in his heart blossomed into something bigger than he thought it could. 

 

The first two families had been busts. While they liked Vara and were interested in helping her, they kept looking back at Keith nervously the entire time. Shiro was loathe to read into it, but when the second family politely declined while looking surreptitiously at Keith, he had to wonder if something deeper was going on. If there was, Keith didn’t realize it himself. 

Shiro thought to ask Krolia about it, but the Declaration was upon them and before he knew it he was standing in Kral Xion greeting people as they came in. Keith was doing the same with his people at the south entrance. Shiro just wanted everyone in so they could get going. 

He was finishing up when someone caught his eye. He had to do a double take to be sure, then the man was walking toward him and there was no mistaking him. 

“Curtis?” 

Curtis ducked his head and walked a little faster so they wouldn’t be overheard. He was in his garrison dress uniform, grey now with three bars stacked over his shoulder. Shiro had heard he’d gone back to instruct but it was something else seeing him here. At a ceremony for Shiro’s _wedding._

“Curtis, what—?” 

“I’m sorry, Shiro, I thought the message got through, but if you’ve been out of office—”

“No, no it’s okay I just… what are you…why are you…?”

Curtis grinned and nodded his head back to where the younger brother of the I’ktal Clan is standing. Shiro knew he was the younger only because he’d met them all before, it would be hard to tell otherwise. Rux was the size of a grizzly bear. “I seem to have a type. It’s not too serious, right now, but I think he’s bringing me so I know what I might be getting myself into.”

Shiro blinked dumbly at Rux. “You… _how_ …”

“He helps coordinate for the Blades and came down to Earth for coalition meetings. I was out at a bar after work one night, year or so after… well he was there and I was there and,” Curtis raised his eyebrows. 

“Huh. He’s down with the Garrison as a liaison now isn’t he?” Shiro vaguely remembered singing those papers a while back. Curtis looked smug. “You’re why he went! You sure this is casual?”

Curtis snorted. “No, but all of this scares the hell out of me so I’m trying to keep it slow.”

Shiro swallowed tightly, thinking of his own Galra. “He’s explained mate-bonds to you, right?”

“Yes.” Curtis’s voice grew a little heavy. “He’s been keeping himself in check, in case, but I… I’m not sure I want him to anymore. Is it weird? What’s it like?”

Shiro thought, trying to pin it all down in a few words. “It’s amazing and terrifying all at once. You have a lot of their physical health in your hands, so you need to really be sure.” 

“So don’t get married six months in while you’re still on comedown from the battle high?” 

Shiro choked and had to beat his own chest to get his lungs working properly. Curtis just laughed. 

“Hey, it’s all worked out in the end. I’m happy for you Shiro, really.” He clapped his hand on Shiro’s shoulder and squeezed. 

“Thanks, Curtis. You too. You can message me or Keith anytime for advice with Rux.” Shiro squeezed his arm back and let him go. Rux was looking at them now, his bright eyes trained on Shiro. He nodded at him once and Shiro returned the nod, a peace he didn’t know he needed washing over him at seeing Curtis happy. 

He turned to continue greeting people and came face to face with a very panicked Lance. “We need you, well Keith needs you, _now_.”

“Why? What happened?” Lance was already apologizing to people and dragging him through the hall. 

“Vara was with the nanny like the rest of the kids and now no one can find her,” Lance said. He was out of breath. “None of the security feeds caught a little kid leaving, so she’s still in here somewhere.” 

“Fuck’s sake,” Shiro picked up the pace beside Lance. 

He found himself glancing around looking for her like she’d just pop up in the crowds of people around the room. All of whom were watching him tear around the place with curious raised eyebrows. 

When they found him Keith looked like he was five seconds from complete meltdown. “We’ve looked everywhere but the damn air vents!” He was shouting at Hunk. “Where the hell did she end up?” 

“Where did you go?” Shiro asked, taking Keith’s elbow and turning him. 

“What? Shiro, thank fuck, Vara—”

“Where did _you_ go?” 

Keith blinked dumbly at him until it clicked. He grabbed Shiro’s arms. “I… I tried to find a room no one was in, and if there was a… closet, or a cubby, something I could cram myself into…” He let go of Shiro and took off for the smaller meeting rooms. “This way.” 

“What just happened?” Lance asked watching Keith. 

Shiro was already taking off after him. “I’ll explain later, come on!” 

They teamed up with Hunk and Lance, going through all the closed doors and tiny offices. Keith was checking spaces Shiro wouldn’t have ever thought a kid could squeeze themselves into. 

Vara had stuffed herself inside a cupboard in the room directly next to where the nanny was watching the other kids. Keith was down on his knees talking to her quietly while Shiro stood guard. She’d refused to even look at Keith while Lance and Hunk were in the room. They were taking care of greeting right now instead. 

“Vara,” Keith groaned. He said something in Galran, his tone totally exasperated. Her voice was high and reedy when she yelled back at him. It had been going on like this for a full five minutes. 

“What’s she saying?” Shiro asked, leaning into the room more. 

“The nanny said something about how they all had to stay in because they weren’t _our_ family or kids and…” Keith growled. “She thinks we’re just going to abandon her like the others. That this was us getting rid of her.” 

“Fuck.” Shiro sighed and thunked his head against the doorframe. “Will she go back at all?”

“No. She keeps saying she doesn’t want to get left—yes, yes sweetie I know. _Klavax durn_ , Vara…” 

“Hey.” 

Shiro turned to see Krolia at his elbow and nearly sobbed. “She thinks we’re trying to leave her behind.” He was sure he looked like he was ready to beg for her to fix it. Which he was. 

Krolia’s mouth hardened and she shoved past him into the room. Shiro almost went to stop her, unsure of what her stance meant in regards to Vara. He wasn’t about to let Krolia make the girl think she had _no_ place with them. That wasn’t the goal here at all. 

Instead she said something that make Keith squawk and she pulled him out of the way. She squatted down in front of where Vara was hidden and started speaking in a soft voice that was completely at odds with how she had looked moments prior. Keith gazed at his mother with an open mouth. 

Miraculously whatever Krolia said had Vara crawling out and right into her arms. “Get back to greeting, you two, Vara will stay with me for the ceremony.” 

“Mom—”

“We’ll deal with it later. _Go_.” The dismissal was clear, and if it hadn’t been, the way she strolled out with Vara on her hip certainly was. 

“How did she do that?” Shiro asked. 

Keith was still staring slack jawed after his mother. “I… I’ll explain later. Just…” he came over and adjusted Shiro’s breastplate, which was in need of absolutely no adjustment. “It’s fine now. And we,” he tugged on the plate, “have a Declaration to get too.” He leaned up and kissed Shiro. “Come on.” 

Shiro wasn’t sure he wanted to be done with the conversation, but Keith was right. They had places to be. 

 

The hush over Kral Xion was almost stifling. Anticipation was high, each eye eagerly awaiting the entrance of the former Paladins. 

Keith was first, coming in down the hall to the dais with his head tall, braid wrapped around his neck like Kolivan wore his, a nod to both clans. His luxite blade was at his hip and the Voltron sigil was across his chest, a slash of red surrounded by his black armor. Each step echoed in the room until he was on the dais, the priest before him, his family at his back. He looked to Allura and Lance across the way for strength. 

No sooner had he stopped than a new set of steps rang through the hall. Shiro was in in white armor, his sigil in black. He bore no weapon but his arm spoke for him—it was the one he’d taken into battle. He’d kept it in the closet, tucked safely in a chest. He may have settled into the diplomat role but he was still Shiro, Champion, Black Paladin, _Atlas_. 

Shiro came and stood across from Keith, both of them undeniably regal in the picture they made. The priest tapped his staff against the dais three times, the sound ringing out in the hall to herald the start of the ceremony. 

“We gathered here today to witness Declarations from Keith Kogane of Privak Clan and Takashi Shirogane of Earth. Do any seek to challenge their right to Declare?” The priest was met with silence. “Proceed.”

Keith closed his eyes and let a long breath out through his nose. When he opened his eyes they were slitted, his traits on full display. “I was born a secret. I was raised and cherished, but wrapped in half-truths. I was left. I was broken and lost, given up to my poor fate when someone decided to tell me I was _worth_ a chance. You gave me my life, and I cannot present an offering enough to begin repayment for that. Instead I pledge my sword to you and your clan. I pledge my life to your protection and happiness. I pledge my life and my heart to yours. Until there are no stars left to hang in the sky, and beyond even then, this is my oath.”

“Do you accept this offering?” 

With great effort Shiro turned from Keith to seek approval from his own. Allura nodded with a hand over her mouth. Lance was full on sobbing into her shoulder. The task fell to Sam who stepped forward with a clear and loud, “We accept this oath.” 

Shiro turned back to Keith, a hint of smile on his lips. “I have always relied on myself. When everyone around me said couldn’t, I pushed myself to prove I could. But you taught me to rely on someone other than myself, for all the right reasons. You give me unwavering support without ever telling me no—even when you should. You also remind me to keep pushing, even when I want to give in. I cannot in any material way repay you this debt. So I pledge my service to your clan, my devotion to your family, and my love to you. Until there are no stars left to hang in the sky, and beyond even then, this is my oath.” 

“Do you accept this offering?” 

Keith tried to blink away the wetness in his eyes and failed. When he looked back to his side Krolia gave a short nod. Kolivan was the one who stepped forward though, “We accept this oath.” 

The Priest’s staff hit the floor three times again. “The offerings have been accepted. We bless this couple in their Feats of Devotion.” 

The silence over the hall broke in roaring applause. Keith let his shoulders drop and reached for Shiro’s hands. Shiro went easily, side-stepping the priest who was trying to get around them and off the dais. 

“We did it,” Keith breathed. “I didn’t fuck up my lines, and we did it.” 

Shiro laughed and pulled him close. “You made Lance cry.”

“A bumble bee could make Lance cry, fuck’s sake. You nearly had _me_ going.” He put his head on Shiro’s shoulder, hiding for a moment before the crowds swarmed them with wishes of luck for their Feats. “How are we going to do this five more times?” 

“At least the last time it’s just the two of us and the priest. I’m glad we went with Hovar,” Shiro said. “He’s not getting flowery like Jeth was.” 

“No shit.” Keith rolled his shoulders back and stood straight. “All right, let’s get started. If we can get through them fast enough we can get home and get the other part done.” 

“I’m beginning to see why Kolivan said we should have the Declarations on separate days.” Shiro put his hand at the small of Keith’s back as they walked off the dais together. 

“Yeah, well, at least we can sleep all day tomorrow. Elder Risha! Thank you so much for coming out today. We’re honored by your support.” 

 

Shiro collapsed onto the couch in Hunk’s quarters when they got back. The armor was still on and poking him at odd angles. 

“Shiro come on, we need to get going if you’re going get this done in time.” Hunk grabbed his shoulders and yanked him off the couch. 

“Why’d we do this all on the same day. This was stupid. We’re fucking stupid.” He let Hunk steer him in front of the counter, covered in the task ahead of them. “This is going to suck.”

“Yup.” Hunk smacked his back. “You get started over there, and I’ll mind the stove. Just follow the instructions and do what I told you to practice.”

Shiro resisted the urge to whine and picked up a knife.

“Sooo,” Hunk’s voice gained that lilt it had whenever he was about to bring up something delicate. “How’s Vara?” 

Shiro paused in his chopping and tried, for the millionth time, to analyze just what had happened today. “I think she’s getting attached to Keith,” he said honestly. “But beyond that I don’t know what today means, or if it means anything at all. We’re not looking to have kids right now.” 

“Do you want kids?” Hunk asked it gently. “I mean, just in general. Ryan and I have both been talking about it. Both of us want a couple down the road.” 

“I hadn’t even thought about it until Keith brought Vara home. I didn’t grow up around kids. I never gave them much consideration either with my prognosis.” Kids wasn’t in his forecast, they never had been. The possibility of children, of having progeny, was startlingly new to him. “I think… I think Keith wants kids, though. I can see it in how he’s been interacting with Vara. And I think, as long as it’s with him, I could do it. Even if it’s terrifying to me.” 

“You, scared of kids?” Hunk snorted. When he was met with silence from Shiro he moved to stand next to him by the counter. “Wait, Shiro, seriously?” He put a hand on Shiro’s shoulder. “You’d make an amazing dad.”

“You think?” Shiro whispered. He wondered. Vara was barely warmed up to him. The twins were all right, but he always felt like he was doing it wrong when he had them in his arms. He said as much. 

Hunk laughed. “Do you have any idea how many times Lance has called me freaking out about the same thing? He grew up with babies and even _he’s_ scared of fucking up. Especially because they’re his kids. Hey, man, if that’s what’s holding you back then you’re in the same boat as the rest of us.” 

Shiro went back to chopping. Letting the image of a family flit across his mind. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. It not like I don’t _like_ kids. And having our own family would be nice. It’s just…”

“Not something you’ve considered with weight, I get that. Maybe now you can?” 

Shiro sighed, smiling a little. “Maybe now I can. Thanks, Hunk.” 

“Anytime,” Hunk said and pat him on the back. “I owe you for helping me turn into the man I am today anyway. Like, seriously, I think you’d be an amazing parent. Keith too. Your kids would be so badass.” 

“They’d have Krolia and Kolivan as grandparents,” Shiro chuckled. “They’ll be throwing knives before they can read.”

“Baby’s first blade,” Hunk cooed. 

Shiro couldn’t help but laugh. In his head he saw himself getting into a fight with Keith over proper knife sizes for a five year old girl, Vara waiting on the couch just—

Huh. He shook his head and refocused on the task at hand. Now wasn’t the time for day dreaming. 

 

The buzz around him was good background noise to his messy thoughts. Vara was curled on his chest, rendering him immobile as she slept. When Allura saw this she’d piled the twins on either side of him. 

“You’re the groom,” she’d said. “You sit here and do this while we get everything ready.” 

Keith didn’t like that plan, but after what had happened he wasn’t sure he had it in him to argue. 

_“You are going nowhere, small one. He loves you and will care for you until he no longer can. He and his mate have taken you in, Vara, and you are safe with them. Do you want to come with me? You can watch them dedicate themselves to each other, with us on our family side. How about that?”_

The lie of it all was thick over his heart. Problem was, he couldn’t figure out which part of the situation was the lie—what Krolia had told Vara, or that Keith was still preparing to send her to a new family. In under three weeks the girl had wormed her way into his heart. To be fair, he adored kids, and he loved his niece and nephew curled into his legs. This wasn’t that kind of affection and he knew it. His mother knew it. Galra forged bond, of love, of family, of loyalty and devotion. It was written into their DNA to do it at times, and he was beginning to suspect this was also one of those moments. He wasn’t sure how it had transpired but it was there, a tender thing between him and the little girl in his arms. 

His mother absolutely knew, if her stern gaze was anything to go by. After today he would talk to her, see if there was a way to still find Vara a good family. A family that was ready for her and could take care of her. 

As much as he wanted her, he knew Shiro wasn’t likely ready for the kids conversation, and he wasn’t close to being ready for parenthood. 

It didn’t make holding her feel less right. 

On cue Krolia stopped on front of him, looking down at the sight he made with pity and exasperation all over her. “Today won’t help the matter at all. It’s going to make it harder.”

“I know. Will a family even be interested, now? I know what you having her with you…I know the kind of statement that made. To everyone.” He reached up and rubbed a hand down Vara’s back. 

“There will still be some, yes. It’s not completely lost. But I need you to be sure about this, Keith. You’re running into dangerous territory with her.” She said it kindly. As kindly as she could really, with the threat of fucking up Vara’s life plain in front of his face. 

He opened his mouth. He closed it again immediately. He wasn’t going to lie to his mother just to get her off of his back. “Keep looking and I’ll… I’ll talk with Shiro.”

Krolia leaned over and rubbed her cheek against his. Instead of comfort the motion pulled shame up his gut into his throat. 

 

Evening light doused the courtyard in deep citron light, all parties seated around the edges. Large tables were already set up for a feast in hopes the feats would be accepted. While it was slightly against protocol, there was little chance they would not be accepted. It was also why they weren’t trying to set up a separate home base for Shiro’s end of things—small chance this would go belly up. 

Five elders from the Iba and Garnex Clans sat at the ready to impartially judge. Shiro was glad to be out of his formal armor, instead in a simple suit. He was seated with Lance and Allura. They would pass judgement on Keith’s feat, deem it a worthy show of bravery for Shiro’s hand. 

They all knew that Keith had more than proved his bravery in regards to Shiro, so he was curious what Keith could have come up with as an act. He did no expect him to walk out with his old guitar in hand and sit down across from him. 

“Keith of Privak,” an Iba Elder said over the hush. “What feat do you present as tribute and trial, to prove your worth?”

Keith tucked a stray strand of hair behind his ear. His fangs were already worrying his bottom lip. 

“I…” he swallowed and started again. “I have tried in action, to do everything in my power to protect you.” He laughed a little ruefully. “It’s not news to anyone here, I don’t think. But I’ve never been good at displaying emotion. The most public declaration of our relationship was earlier today.” 

Shiro, and a good smattering of the party, laughed at that too. 

“This,” he lifted the guitar a little, “doesn’t seem like a lot in the face of everything else. But you, and everyone here, knows how private I am. So.” His lithe fingers plucked over the guitar strings, chords flowing out into the night. “I want to give you this.” 

Shiro closed his eyes and fought back tears. The moment he saw the guitar he knew this was coming, but it still pinned him with emotion. As Keith began to sing, and old earth song Shiro loved, Allura and Lance gasped. 

“ _Hit me like a ray of sun, burning through my darkest night. You’re the only one that I want, and I’m addicted to your light._ ”

He lost the fight to crying. Tears flowed freely down his face as Keith continued to sing. Allura had grabbed his hand to hold it, finally catching on to which song this was. Early on, when they’d started living together, the nightmares had been awful. Shiro woke up every night for almost two months remembering their fight at the cloning facility. On the worst nights Keith would sing him back to sleep with this melody, telling Shiro how much he meant to him. He’d started to sing it after Shiro had played it randomly one day to show Allura who Beyonce was. Allura and Lance were the only ones who knew what this song had come to mean between them. 

“ _Everywhere I’m looking now, I’m surrounded by your embrace. Baby I can see your halo, you know you’re my saving grace. Everything I need and more, it’s written all over your face. Baby I can see your halo._ ”

Keith finished off the song, the notes drifting into the night. Shiro could hear other people wiping their own eyes. He didn’t bother. 

“We understand this feat is one of vulnerability displayed,” the Iba Elder said. “We are in agreement that this feat proves intent, alongside feats of battle already commenced. What say you?” He turned to Lance and Allura. 

Lance, again was too overwhelmed to say anything and waved at Allura to go on for him. She sighed and rolled her eyes. “We accept this feat as proof of Keith’s devotion.” 

A small round of cheers went up. Shiro was itching to go to Keith, wrap him up in his arms and kiss him senseless. He could see the furious blush on his cheeks from here. No one was ever going to let him forget that they knew he could sing now. And play the guitar. A piece of his private self given up in a few minutes to tell Shiro he loved him in front of family and friends. 

Shiro hoped his own feat would be half as good. 

“Takashi of Earth,” A Garnex Elder said. “What feat do you present as tribute and trial, to prove your worth?”

Shiro stood and wrung his hands. “Hi, um, sorry.” He sniffed and wiped at his eyes. “Hoo, okay. Ready.” Polite laughter bubbled up around him. “Keith, you have given me more than I could have ever dared to ask for, and more than I think I could ever deserve. I have tried to protect, provide, and care for you since the moment I met you. I knew in my soul that you were important, and that hasn’t changed a bit. You once said I gave you family when you had none. You still say that to this day, on those hard nights that still come, and will always come.” He gestured to where Hunk was waiting in the wings. “So, I wanted to prove I could live up to that. I haven’t always been there for you like you needed me, but every moment from this one on I’m going to try and be that person. I know you miss your dad’s cooking, and you said you didn’t think you’d ever be able to make it yourself. We joked that I could, but I’m… working on not being a terrible cook. So, with permission of aid from the Elders, Hunk’s been teaching me. I want to show you I can be the support you need, and I hope I can start that with some home cooking.”

As he spoke Hunk brought out all the dishes Shiro had made himself, with no help. They were the ones Keith had mentioned specifically in reference to missing his dad’s cooking. Shiro knew they wouldn’t taste the same, but he hoped the gesture would be enough. 

Keith was staring at the food before him open mouthed. “Shiro… you…”

“I made all of these, without help,” he said. “Because I wanted them to be from me. But the rest of dinner Hunk helped with. We’ve been prepping in secret for days. It’s what I was doing when I said I was ‘practicing’.” 

Keith’s lip wobbled and he reached behind him. Krolia came, her own eyes assessing what Shiro had done. 

Carefully Keith took a bite of potato, silently handing Krolia a fork to do the same. Dish by dish they ate bites of what Shiro had made. Keith was misty eyed by the end of it. Shockingly Krolia was too. 

“It’s good,” Keith said, his voice small. “Shiro, it’s really good. You have to cook now, you know? You can’t just make me do it every time—” his voice was breaking as he tried to say more. 

“We understand this feat was one of devotion, showing that Takashi is dedicated to providing for and being part of the clan, alongside feats of protection already commenced.” The Elder turned to Kolivan. “What say you?” 

Kolivan in turn nodded to Krolia who mumbled. “We accept.” She let out a shaky breath and cleared her throat, saying it again loud enough for everyone to hear. 

Even with just under thirty people in attendance the roar from their friends and family was deafening. Keith smiled and yanked Shiro across the table for a searing kiss, nearly landing Shiro right in the food. 

“Babe,” Shiro laughed, trying to pry Keith off. “Baby, just let me get around the—there. Hi.”

“Hi,” Keith warbled. He looked wrecked, fat tears sitting in his eyes. “You suck.”

“Mm,” Shiro gathered him close and pressed his nose into his hair. “Maybe later, sunshine. I think we gotta go wrap this up. Unless you want to hold off on the Blessing until tomorrow?”

“Fuck no, let’s wrap this up.” Keith pushed back and wiped his face on the back of his hand. “Okay, where’s Priest Hovar?” Keith spotted him and started bodily shoving Shiro toward the man. 

Hovar had his staff tucked in the crook of his arm and was examining the dinner rolls Hunk and Ryan had made. He spotted them and straightened. “Are we proceeding?” 

“Yes, please. Now. I want to keep eating,” Keith said a little breathlessly. 

Lance could be hear over the din, yelling at people to shut up and watch. Shiro took Keith's hand and knelt with him before Hovar, right there in front of the bread and salad table. Hovar looked like he wanted to be done with this day too and almost hastily clacked his staff on the ground. 

“The Dedications and Feats have been accepted. By the powers in me, granted by the Elders and the Gods, I bless you both and your petition for Union.” He passed the staff over their heads three times as he spoke. When he was done he smacked the staff end down on the ground once more. 

Keith shot up, almost knocking Hovar over. “All right! Everyone eat!” 

Shiro couldn’t help but double over in laughter watching Keith dive for a plate to fill. When Hovar raised an eyebrow at him he just shrugged. The first set of ceremonies was over, with almost no hiccups. Keith was allowed to say ‘fuck it’ and enjoy for the rest of the night. 

Shiro planned to join him in every second of it. 

 

If there was any part of his culture that surprised Keith, it was that Galra knew how to throw a _wild_ party. The moment nunvill came out, along with an embarrassingly large assortment of other alcohols, the party was insane. Lance ended up the first to duck out, putting the twins to bed. Krolia ended up taking care of Vara, but she wouldn’t go down without at least Shiro or Keith looking in on her. Shiro had taken care of that since, apparently, it was tradition for some of the clans to have a drinking contest with the betrothed. 

Keith was fairly sure Axca was blowing smoke up his ass, but he’d gotten to do it to her before she got married to Veronica, so it was only fair. That was his thinking at least, until Axca called in Zethrid to be his opponent. 

By the time Shiro got back from putting Vara to bed, tonight in a room with the twins and the Wolf standing guard, Keith was incredibly drunk. 

“You!” He shouted when he saw Shiro. “Fuck me, you are so, _so,_ fucking beautiful. Guys, guys I get to _marry_ him. I get to suck his—”

“DRINK!” Axca shouted shoving a glass of what was not nunvill into his face. He didn’t know what it was called, but not-nunvill seemed like the best thing because nunvill was sparkling grape juice compared to this. He took the shot. 

“He _cooked_ for me.” Shiro was beside him now, looking very bemused and pretty. “You cooked for me.” He leaned his head on Shiro’s thigh. “I’m gonna cry again, you asshole.” 

Shiro patted his head. “Have you had any water.” 

“This is clear!” Keith pointed at the bottle on the table. 

“Yes.” Shiro gently titled his head up. God he was gorgeous. “And mostly empty. Why are you trying to outdrink Zethrid?”

“S’tradi—tradidid—trion.” He smacked his mouth. “I think there are butterflies in my mouth.”

“Oh my god. You guys, what the hell?” Shiro sat down and pulled Keith close, saying something to someone Keith couldn’t make out. Maybe it was Ryan. 

“It is tradition,” Axca said, shrugging. “He didn’t specify who he wanted to challenge.” 

“I wanted him somewhat coherent tonight.”

“Why?” Zethrid belched loudly. “The drunker he is the more pliant he’ll be. You can bend him around like a knot if you want.”

“Or bend around his knot,” Ezor giggled. 

Hearing only parts, and not exactly able to refute the parts he did, Keith pushed his face into Shiro’s neck. “You-you smell so goooood.” 

Shiro chuckled. The motion jostled him so Keith had to nuzzle back in. “Oh, baby, you are going to be so pissed off tomorrow.” 

Keith smiled and mouthed a Shiro’s neck, the expanse too much a temptation to not. “No, I can’t be mad. I’m marrying you. And we’re—we’re gonna be a family, Shiro. And we’re gonna be so, so good. Wasss’is?” There was something nudging against his lips that wasn’t Shiro’s skin. 

“Water, you pretty little dork. Drink.” 

The water was cool, sliding down his throat like a balm. “Mmm, s’good. Like you. You’re so sooo good Shiro. So good to me, an’ Vara. She--she ain’t even ours and you’re so—” tears pricked his eyes and he hiccuped. “Aw fuck, I’m drunk.” 

“Yeah, that’s it.” Shiro scooped Keith up in a fluid motion, cradling him in his arms. “I’m calling it for the night. We’re going to bed.” 

Zethrid and Ezor whooped as Shiro carried Keith off. The sentiment was echoed by everyone in attendance it seemed as they went across the courtyard. Keith pressed his face against Shiro’s neck and smiled. He knew he’d be embarrassed about it in the morning but drunk-Keith couldn’t bring himself to give a shit. 

Shiro was laying him down on the bed. Keith hadn’t registered arriving there even a little bit, brain to hazed with drink and want. He pushed his back against the plush mattress and deliberately let his legs fall open, hips jutting up. 

“Keith,” Shiro sighed, flopping down beside him. He was smiling, cheeks flush and eyes fond. “You’re way too drunk right now babe, you’d fall asleep halfway through.” 

Keith whined. He wanted Shiro’s big fat cock and said as much. “Wnat’ya to fuck me,” he said against Shiro’s arm. He’d rolled over then, huh, didn’t remember that either. 

“You’re gonna be mad at me in the morning if I let you do this and your head _and_ your ass hurt.”

“M’won’t,” he protested. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open. Shiro smelled so good and he was so comfy. 

“Sleep, love,” Shiro said against his temple. “We can have morning sex if your head isn’t killing you.” 

“Mm’k. I love you.” 

“I love you too.”

 

 

 


	2. I made a vow (I'll be there)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the wedding draws near, Shiro and Keith have another life altering decision to make...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rolls in four months late with Starbucks and a 20K pile of pure shit-snacking tooth-rotting fluff.  
> " ‘sup." 
> 
> FINALLY FINISHED THE FREAKING THING. Sorry for those who were waiting, but here it is, the conclusion to the fic that was going to be under 20K... oops. 
> 
> As always HUGE shoutout to Kira (@nautalicious) / for beta-ing my word vomit.

 It was not morning, not even close, but the drink had worn off and Galra anatomy blessed him with the inability to get hangovers unless he was blackout drunk. So Keith was awake, looking at how moonlight turned Shiro’s hair into starlight. His mouth parted just enough to let out little puffs of breath against the pillow. He slept cold to Keith’s hot, for all his body mass, and was curled close, all blankets tangled around him with little left for Keith to fight for. 

Somewhere in the course of the night Shiro had curled a leg between Keith’s. He’d clearly been having some good dreams because Keith had woken to that leg rubbing slow and errant against him. Shiro was still asleep, mumbling under his breath, flush high on his cheeks.  Keith was content to just laze in sleepy arousal while Shiro dreamed on, until Shiro’s hips jerked and he felt that thick, hard cock rising in his fiancé’s pants. 

Keith was only a man, at the end of the day. 

Extracting himself to lean over to the bedside table and fish out the lube was easy enough. They’d had the ‘as long as we don’t have to get up early, fucking me awake is on the table’ talk very early in their relationship. Since they hadn’t gotten to consummate the first stages of marriage ceremonies right away Keith figured this was more than due. 

He worked himself open first, kicking off the sheets and blankets, bracing himself on his side so he could watch Shiro twitch and moan in his sleep. He worked quickly, not caring if there was a little bit of a bite to the pleasure. Under the sheets the outline of Shiro’s dick was getting more and more discernible. 

Carefully, once he was ready, Keith peeled the bedding down and tilted Shiro onto his back. His cock strained against his boxers and Keith was quick to free Shiro from its little prison. He wasn’t fully hard yet and Keith was weak for that cock. 

Shiro started to fully wake up just as Keith had started to bob his head in earnest, getting Shiro’s length as sloppy as he could with spit and precome.

“Baby?” Shiro’s voice was all gravel, confusion laced in each syllable. “Wha—ohh god.” 

Keith hummed happily around Shiro’s cock and was rewarded with an undignified whimper. He popped off of it, smug as he nuzzled it with his cheek. “Hello darling.” 

“Ung…” Shiro’s abs constricted and a deep flush spread down his chest. “Fuck, I thought I was dreaming.” 

“You were,” Keith chirped. He kissed the tip of Shiro’s cock and lapped at the precome beading there. “Which woke me up. You know, I really, really wanted to sit on your dick last night.” He wrapped a hand around Shiro, just shy of too tight and gave him a few quick tugs. 

“Ah _fuck_.” 

God he loved Shiro like this, flustered and completely incapable of doing anything but whimpering. He braced himself over Shiro, letting one hand catch that delicious cock and guide it to his open hole. “Let you split me open,” he purred as he let the flared head breech him. Shiro gasped. “Sink down on your thick cock and ride you until you were wrung out.” 

“Shit, _Keith._ ” Shiro wrapped his hands round Keith’s hips as if to hold him steady. Keith knew better though—Shiro just needed something to hang on to. 

Keith rode him slow, relishing in all of the little sounds he punched out of Shiro as he did. Just when Shiro would try and buck up into him, match his rhythm, Keith would settle down and _grind_ against him. By the end Shiro was a near sobbing mess and Keith barely had it in him to get Shiro off first, he was so turned on by the way Shiro was reacting. Once Shiro gasped and went taut beneath him, it only took two firm strokes on his straining cock for him to shoot off all over Shiro’s chest. 

It took him by surprise when he felt Shiro’s hand stroke over his own, gently tracing his still twitching length. The pads of his fingers brushed down over the base and Keith cried out, the echo of his orgasm rocking through him. 

Shiro smirked below him, a soft sound of surprise leaving his lips. “It happened again,” he whispered, voice hoarse. 

Keith whimpered and looked down. Sure enough the base of his cock had swollen a bit, dark and bulbous. “Fuck,” he hissed. He was still weakly coming, waiting for the damn thing to wane. 

Shiro chuckled, jostling them in this position and making Keith whimper again. “If you end up with one—” they were not using the ‘k’ word just yet, Keith didn’t even want to think about _that_ “— _I’m_ not going to complain.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Slut.” The waves of pleasure were ebbing and he levered himself off of Shiro’s softening dick, limbs trembling with exhaustion. He apparently wasn’t as with it as he thought. He flopped gracelessly onto the sheets, ignoring the cooling sweat and come on his thighs. 

“I make no argument against that case,” Shiro said. He pushed himself up off the bed to go to the bathroom. Keith laid there and listened, the familiar sounds of the faucet and wet faint slap of a washcloth soothing. Years ago this wouldn’t have been part of his late night fantasies, they all tapered off with the blind hope that there could be any form of intimacy. In reality, taking care of each other in the aftermath had somehow become the best part of it all. The gentle moments between them slowly filled in all of the cracks still left in his heart from a lifetime of loss. 

Shiro came back and wiped him down, trailing a line of kisses up his spine as he did. “We’re gonna get married.”

Keith hummed, the sound morphing instantly into a deep purr. The sensation had been so startling at first and now it was second nature to do it around Shiro and his family. “Blessed for it and everything.” 

Shiro tossed the washrag into the bathroom where it landed with a splat. 

“Tub?”

“Just missed,” Shiro said, “it’s on the floor.”

“Gross.” Keith took his arm and dragged Shiro back down to bed. “You better move it before I get up to pee in the middle of the night.” 

Shiro went pliantly. “It’s already well past then, my love.” He kissed Keith’s temple and rolled them back under the blanket, kicking the stained sheet to the bottom of the bed. “I’ll get it in a bit.”

“You’re gonna wake up with it on your face if you don’t.” Keith’s threat was undermined by a deep, loud yawn. “Fuck I’m getting old.” 

Shiro pinched his arm. “What does that make me?” 

“Ancient. Decrepit. You are the dust from the crumbled pillars of a nation.” 

Shiro barked out a laugh. “You are such a little shit, I’m getting the cockring out next time.”

“Won’t fit,” Keith mumbled, eyes slamming shut despite his attempt to keep them open. “Too big for it now.” He fell asleep to the sound of Shiro sputtering above him. 

 

The drawback of a Galra party was the cleanup in the morning—fields of empty bottles, plates and cutlery strewn across the lawn, some knives embedded in walls, and at least two broken tables. 

Keith, for all of his crowing about no hangovers, was nursing a headache in the corner of the courtyard while yanking out the aftermath of what looked to be an impromptu knife-throwing contest. He never admitted that his version of a hangover was dehydration and a headache to match. Shiro had tried to argue it once and Keith vehemently said it was just a lack of sleep. Now Shiro just slipped him pain killers and water without a word. Keith’s contrite face each time was worth it. 

He was doing his best to clear and pack away tables that were still in usable condition with Hunk and Matt, neither of whom were talking. The party had lasted well into the night, with Pidge claiming they’d still been in the courtyard when he and Keith got loud. He didn’t remember getting loud while they’d fucked, but he also rarely cared about that. Galra weren’t ones to be shy about bedroom life. Shiro didn’t mind. 

“Where does this go?” Lance asked him. He was holding a platter that, at one point, had food on it. Traces of that food still clung to spots in drastically different colors from what it likely had been, well-crusted over. 

“I have no idea whose that is,” Shiro admitted. It may have been theirs, but fuck if he could remember that right now. “Just…I think Colleen called dishes, take it to her. We’ll… we’ll figure out who it belongs to later.” 

Lance nodded and hastily walked away. He was one of the few spared from a hangover, Allura and Coran being the others. Alteans. 

Allura was in charge of the children, which Vara was clearly undecided about. She kept toddling over to Keith and tugging at his shirt. He’d lean down, nuzzle her, and steer her back to Allura so he could focus on the knives in the courtyard wall. Shiro shouldn’t have been surprised when she eventually gave up on Keith, her little fingers curling around his pant leg to get his attention. 

“Sheewo.” 

He carefully set down the table he was holding. Once she had his full attention her little chubby arms reached up, stretching a little for emphasis. Shiro looked up to enlist Allura’s help, but she was slumped against a chair, face pushed into the seat, asleep while the twins babbled in her lap. She had not been the designated ‘responsible parent’ the night before. 

Shiro reached down and pulled a delighted Vara up into his arms, settling her on his hip. The motion was starting to feel natural to him, her weight solid and warm against his side. She grabbed his shoulder port and stuck her face into the light there, giggling. Shiro shook his head and pried her away to switch sides. If Vara was insisting on being entertained by someone, his right arm could still be useful while his left was occupied by little girl. 

Folding up the tables took twice as long, but he didn’t mind with Vara singing a made-up song to pass the time. Every now and again she’d tap out an uneven beat on his back. It never matched the melody of her tune, which was less a melody than vaguely connected notes with lyrics of dubious linguistic origin, but Shiro found himself humming along with her all the same. 

“Look at you.” Pidge walked up, their sleeves rolled and arms loaded with what looked like discarded clothing. Shiro swore he saw Hovar’s outer robes peeking out from the middle of the pile. “Never once thought I’d see the day you got all domestic.” 

Vara’s song immediately stopped and she buried herself in Shiro, face smushed into his shoulder. 

“Yeah,” he sighed. He had to adjust her a bit so he could keep her comfortably in his arms while she did her best to hide behind his back from that position. “She still only really trusts me, Keith, and Krolia, so not much of a choice.” 

Pidge cocked their head. “Yeah, I mean sure. But you look happy, Shiro.” 

“I’m in the middle of getting married to the man I love, who wouldn’t look happy?” He was momentarily distracted by Vara making a distressed sort of chirping sound in his ear, so he had his arm return to sooth down her back. “What? You’re giving me that ‘he’s being a dense idiot’ look.” 

They pressed their lips together into a thin line. “With Vara, Shiro. You look happy like that, with her,” Pidge said slowly. “I know it wasn’t something you thought you wanted, but… look I _know_ I don’t want children. But Hunk told me what you guys talked about, and we’re all watching you both with Vara. And you look happy Shiro. Content.” 

Shiro sighed. “Yeah, I understand what you’re saying, Pidge. And I’m not saying you’re wrong either, I have started to think about a future with kids—” 

“No, Shiro.” Pidge cut him off. “With _Vara_. You look content with Vara.” He must have looked stricken because they quickly amended, “Just think about it. Before it’s too late to do anything about the fact that you’ve both been making space for her in your lives.” 

Shiro involuntarily reached up to trace the braid he’d woven into her hair this morning while Keith had made a good show of acting like he was dying from his headache in bed. It was one that meant protection, love, and belonging. He’d chosen it thinking of the atmosphere he and Keith had been forging with the ceremony.  

As he traced the braid Vara started to gently purr in his arms. 

 

“Are... are you hacking into the security for the complex?” Hunk set the box of cutlery down. Pidge was hunched over the counter on a slim tablet connected to a keyboard setup in English and Galra. “Oh my god you are. Pidge! 

“Kolivan asked me to find holes in their system,” Pidge said absently. “He also said that the cutlery can get sorted out into the houses later tonight when everyone is a little less hungover.” 

“How are you not hungover?” Hunk asked, his own headache still pounding beneath his eyeballs, which was still an improvement from the morning. 

Pidge didn’t say a word but pushed a half-drunk glass of green-brown liquid at him. “I was. The Olkari came up with this. It does _not_ taste good.”

Hunk swished the contents around the glass, noting the chunky texture, and gulped it down in one shot. He’d extracted livers out of dubious meteor grubs that tasted better raw. “Fuck,” he gasped. The sludge worked its way down his throat, but as it did his headache, and all other aches, cleared. “ _Fuck_ , all right then. They give you a recipe?” 

“Already in your files,” Pidge said absently. They made a low, triumphant noise and started to type furiously. 

“Found a crack?” 

“Found a giant gaping hole. I don’t know if anyone not me would have seen it, but damn, man.” They fumbled for the coffee mug, catching it on the third swipe. It proved empty and they shoved it away. 

“Here,” Hunk grabbed it up. “I’ll grab you some. Three sugars?”

“Just two, I’ve been trying to cut back. It’s been giving me weird headaches lately, but that might be the Altean variety too. It’s a different composition.” 

Hunk pulled out the sugar and put two spoonfuls in. “Galra sugar acts like ours so you may be able to get away with three while you’re here.”

“With two more weeks of wedding hell, I’d be glad to. I don’t think I brought enough work. Thanks,” They took the offered mug and sipped happily. “Everyone still in nap mode after clean up?” 

“Not quite, still finishing up a couple of things. Ryan’s still asleep, I think, and I know he isn’t the only one. Once Shiro carried Keith off last night, Ezor wanted to keep the drinking competitions going and Ryan somehow ended up opposite Coran.” He rummaged through the cupboard for another mug for his own coffee. 

Pidge did a five key simultaneous execution of something and their hacking logo popped up on the screen. “That should take a little bit to cook. So,” they leaned back in their chair. “You noticed the idiots in love have a new family addition?” 

“I don’t understand why they don’t see it! They’re smitten with her. You _saw_ Shiro today!” Hunk threw his hands up in the air. “And they’re seeing three more families this week.” 

“I told him, as gently as I could, which we all know means I was too blunt.” They rubbed their eyes under their glasses. “But he might have learned to listen to me now. Who knows. The only thing that’s certain is that if Vara is adopted out, Keith is going to be miserable.”

Hunk lifted his mug to that. “Galra bonds definitely aren’t limited to romantic relationships, that much is fucking clear.” 

“So. What’s the plan?” 

Hunk took a sip of his coffee. “Right now? Delay the adoption process until after the wedding and they can get their heads around this. While they do that, we keep dropping hints. Oh! And get Krolia involved. I think she already knows what’s up.” 

Pidge snorted. “She definitely does. That move at Kral Xion? That was her declaring that Vara is considered a part of the family at the moment. I can’t imagine the families interested in adopting her right now know about that. And if they do I’d be wary of why they want her, when she’s been claimed publicly like that.” 

“How…” Hunk put his head on the table. “How are they both so dense?” 

Pidge reached over and patted his arm. 

 

_“She smells like you.”_

_“There’s a clear attachment there.”_

_“We’re interested, but we didn’t realize how involved you were. Are you sure you and your mate do not want to keep her as your own?”_

_“We do not mean to offend but… We wouldn’t want to dislodge her from family again, sir.”_

Keith brought the butcher knife down hard enough to crack the cutting board below. He winced, but when he looked up Shiro and Vara were still laughing in the living room as she tried to catch his arm while it zoomed around the couch. They hadn’t heard the the board buckling beneath his strength. He rolled the chunk of pork loin off of the thing and picked it up, the two stone halves looking forlorn in his hands. The cut was clean enough that they could be used as smaller cutting boards. He set them aside to wash and file down later and fished out a butcher block. 

“Everything okay, baby?” 

Shiro was standing by the kitchen counter, Vara propped on his hip. She had his arm in her hands, Shiro having let it go pliant for her to manhandle around like a personal toy. Keith cleared his throat and looked away from them. 

“Cracked the stone cutting board, sliced down too hard. I’ll get a new on after the wedding, or we could end up with one anyway.” Keith pulled the pork over and started cutting again. “I still don’t know how all of the gifts work, just that we’re going to be getting a lot.” 

“I’m just grateful for the gift of a pork loin. I can’t believe Hunk brought us one,” Shiro said. He readjusted Vara and drew close to inspect the damage. “At least it was a clean cut. What happened? You usually don’t lose control like that.” 

“I think it’s just stress, with the wedding and helping find her a home… I think it all just got to me for a second.” He could hear the lie in his own voice, and Shiro did too, the stiff silence beside him spoke volumes to it. Shiro said nothing though, just leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the side of his head. 

“Don’t push yourself. Lean on me, okay? It’s what I’m here for, husband and all.” Shiro chuckled, the warmth of his breath fanning over Keith. 

“Not quite yet,” he said. He leaned back into Shiro, Vara pressed almost between them and making discontent noises at their weird configuration. The chasm in his heart deepened when Shiro gently cooed at her, the normalcy of it cutting like hot iron. They could have this one day, but that didn’t placate him anymore. Keith shook himself and refocused on trying to cut up the slab of meat in front of him for the freezer. “Can you get the vacuum seal bags out?” 

If Shiro noticed the tremor in his voice he said nothing. 

The thought refused to leave him through dinner that night, just the three of them instead of the entourage of the wedding party. Shiro had requested it that morning when Keith and Krolia had been tearing their hair out about seating arrangements for the umpteenth time. At the time Keith had relished the idea. Now he saw that it was just another moment to prolong the fantasy that this could become a reality, him and Shiro and this wonderful little girl who had stumbled into their lives. 

They finished eating and Shiro, wicked giddy grin on his face, suggested that they watch a movie. Kieth knew that it was less for Vara’s benefit and more an excuse to watch the old Disney movies that Shiro was secretly obsessed with. Shiro’s excitement bled into Vara and Keith was utterly pinned by both of their puppy dog stares. 

“ _You don’t even know what he’s suggesting,”_ he said to her. 

“Moooovie!” She exclaimed, bouncing on her little legs. She sang the word loudly over and over as she toddled to the living room. 

Shiro kissed Keith’s cheek sloppily, laughing like an idiot. “Come on, you love it when I sing along to Tangled.”

Keith huffed. “Oh, is that what we’re watching?” 

Humming, Shiro danced around him and took ahold of his hands, walking backwards into the living room. “And I last I see the light.” 

“Oh my god.” Keith tried to free his hands to cover his face in shame, but Shiro held tight, silver-grey eyes sparkling with mirth. 

“And it’s like the fog has lifted!” 

They all end up on the couch, Shiro taking up most of it, Vara curled up on his chest. Keith cornered himself on the other end, legs tangled with Shiro’s, Vara’s hand curled over his shin where it was tucked next to Shiro’s ribs. 

He was the only one awake when _I See the Light_ started up, Shiro snoring softly and Vara drooling on his shirt. The scene was too sweet for him to ruin by rousing them to go to bed, and he did like the movie. Shiro would crow if he saw him mouthing the lyrics along with Rapunzel, while watching the two of them slumbered on. The sight filled him with a warmth he didn’t know he wanted until seeing Shiro content with a child in his arms. 

 Keith debated if he wanted to carry them each to bed or have the Wolf take on one of them after the movie, when the lyrics he was still softly singing smacked him upside the head. 

_And the world has somehow shifted._

He choked on the line, breath short in his lungs as he uttered it, gazing at the pair. The tug in his heart twisted and locked, irrevocably. He had to cover his mouth to muffle the cry that broke out of him. This was something he had been desperately trying to avoid but he didn’t know how to, and he didn’t want to, not really. 

Galra formed bonds, and Keith had no idea where he was going to find the strength to break this one. 

 

Of course Daibazaal had parks. It was something any industrialized civilization had, designated spots to be in nature, especially in places where the hubbub of life was built up in stone and metal. The beauty of the park, though, was not something Allura had anticipated. 

She had seen parks in her youth, during those rare times when she and her parents would come to visit Zarkon and Honerva. She rarely saw the couple themselves during those trips—they were either in the lab with her father, or at state dinners where minors were not allowed by Galra custom—but she had seen a fair amount of the planet. 

Perhaps during her days Daibazaal was already feeling the strain of the trans-reality gate opening at its core. Perhaps the parks she had seen simply weren’t taken care of like this one was. This one was lovely though, boasting tall flowering bushes, pregnant with lush purple blossoms. Tall trees that clustered together like lovers made intricate groves along pathways. There were small fauna dancing around the bench where she sat, clearing trying to complete the time-old mating dance. Few of the pursued parties seemed interested though. Juniper was watching them intently from where she sat on the ground at Allura’s feet. Jasper was curled into her arms, dozing lightly. 

She’d asked if Vara wanted to come along, but the young girl wasn’t quite comfortable around Allura alone yet. Day by day though she was worming her way into all of their lives, most noticeably the two men who had taken her in. 

Strong hands slid over her shoulders and around them and pulled her back against a warm chest. “Hey,” Lance rasped. “Whatcha thinking about?” 

“Shiro and Keith,” she said, leaning into him. “And Vara.”

Lance’s head dropped down onto her shoulder and she heard him take a long, deep breath. “I think I’m going to beat them both over the head. Just scream at them until they stop being idiots. Why are they always idiots?”

“Because they try and protect each other to the point of impasse,” Allura said. That the two were dancing this dance wasn’t a surprise, but the potential repercussions on Vara were starting to worry her. “They’ll figure it out, even if we need to _help_ them.” 

Lance pulled back and walked to plop himself down next to her. He took Jasper smoothly, freeing her lap from the weight of their child. Jasper groused but settled quickly against his father. The twins always slept better with Lance. “You think you can just drop something in the Proclamation? Like Krolia pulling Vara out for the declaration?” 

“Possibly, Keith might try and kill me, though.” The Proclamation was something Allura didn’t want to think about just yet. She was a princess, a galactic leader, and was completely intimidated by having to help legalize two of her best friends’ wedding. There were full tomes on the etiquette for the affair and most of them ended with ‘and _if_ you fuck this up, this is how the other clan will brutally disembowel you.’ She shook herself and refocused on the more pressing matter of potential progeny. “To be honest my love, I think we just need to keep nudging them. Keith won’t be able to keep it secret for much longer.”

“Keep what secret?” 

She sometimes forgot that her human companions didn’t know about Galra biology like she did, that they weren’t raised with warnings about getting into deep emotional entanglements. She shuddered to think about what had nearly happened with Lotor. “Keith is… do you remember when he bonded unknowingly with Shiro? How he acted around him before he realized what was going on?”

Lance groaned. “God don’t remind me, he was awful. Even before he realized! He was mopey unless he was around Shiro, and when he was it was either sappy-puppy-love, or bittersweet wistful smiles while he self-denied—oh my god.”

“Precisely.”

“No.”

Allura patted Lance’s thigh. “I’m afraid so love.”

“God _damnit!_ Why doesn’t he know better? Can we take him to Galra middle school or something? Fuck’s sake.” 

“Lance,” Allura lifted her arms enough to gesture at Jasper. “Language.”

“He needs to know his uncle is a fucking idiot, Allura. No, _uncles_. Why are they so emotionally...just…” Lance clenched his fingers into claws and scrunched his face up. 

He was adorable when he got like that and Allura couldn’t help but lean forward to kiss his cheek. “Emotionally unavailable with underlying issuse regarding self worth and trust? I don’t know dear, perhaps some issues in early years.” 

Lance unclenched and deadpan glared at her. “Yeah, yeah. But they can’t keep using it as an excuse to get in these situations. We’re getting them therapy as their wedding present.” 

In Lance’s lap, Jasper began to stir. The light was fading anyway so it was time to get back to the complex. “Not the worst idea you’ve ever had, though we may have to frame it more subtlety.”

“Nope!” Lance scooped Jasper’s pliant form up, cradling his son to his chest. “They lost that privilege. Intervention time!” 

Allura laughed and moved to collect Juniper, shaking her head. 

“Hey.”

She stopped and looked back over her shoulder, Lance standing there with their son in his arms, face soft and open. Sincere. “I love you.”

Emotion choked her. It always did when he did this, stopped their ridiculous lives and looked at her like she was a goddess materialized. Reminding her that this reality for them was almost lost. “I love you too, Lance.”

He gave her a jerked nod and sniffed, pulling himself back together. “All right, back home, I think Hunk’s cooking for everyone tonight.”

 

If one more pin made its way into Shiro’s skin he was returning to a life of violence, no regrets. The formal robes for the private ceremony wrapped in a similar fashion to the senior blade regalia but with longer pieces and precise, corset like waist-belts. They reminded him of something between the western nineteenth century bodices and the long suffered, elaborate _obi_ from kimono. 

“I feel like Kolivan,” Hunk muttered from his own pedestal where a tailor was wrapping his bandolier-like piece tight around him. Hunk looked less than pleased about it, but Shiro had seen the way he kept glancing at Ryan in the getup. Which was to say that it suited Ryan very, very well. When Hunk realized he’d been caught he blushed and coughed to cover it. Shiro just winked. 

His own robes were slowly making him resemble a Dorito chip from the waist up. “Kolivan would probably enjoy us all acting a little more regimented.”

“What we wear is crucial to showing our rank in society, Ambassador. Most Galra appreciate formal wear as means to understand how best proceed with social interactions.” Jera, his tailor, said matter-of-factly. “You tolerate it much better than your mate. No disrespect, Ambassador.” 

Shiro snorted. “None taken. He’s always been very stubborn, and doesn’t always understand why people just don’t interact how they want and respect each other while they do.”

“He doesn’t understand social interactions in general, Shiro,” Hunk chimed in. “It’s Keith, your man is very literal in pretty much everything.” 

“You’re not wrong. He’s not allowed at negotiation meetings between clans anymore, he nearly took out three elders because they were being petty and prolonging issues for their people. He wasn’t wrong, but Kolivan still kicked him out.”

At his feet the tailor snickered. “That was the talk of the capital for a week. Though his tenacity was looked on favorably, I will say.” 

“Thankfully,” Shiro sighed. “Sometimes it doesn’t go so well for him.”

“Like that time he had us dogging Lotor until we ended up nearly stranded on an explosive gas planet,” Hunk groaned. “That was not one of his finer moments.” 

“I heard. He’s grown a lot since then, and he’s a huge help for me away from the negotiating table.” Shiro looked down at his robes, nearly complete now aside from last-minute adjustments. They were black and violet with white stitching. The shapes on his bandolier indicated his rank within the Galra government and other accomplishments. There would be a Voltron sigil pinned to it on the night of the wedding and for their wedding photos. 

“He really has changed a lot. Pretty much a father figure now,” Hunk said offhandedly. “He’s amazing with the twins, not to mention Vara.” 

Objectively Hunk was right, compared to the Keith all of the Paladins had known, he had changed drastically in the last ten years. Shiro was the only one who had seen him in his last home, taking care of the younger kids while the parents were at the lake on their new boat, bought on foster care funds. They had been one of _those_ foster families and Shiro had taken great delight in reporting them. “He’s always been great with kids,” he said to Hunk and Ryan. “I’m not surprised that he honed in on Vara when they met.” 

Hunk hummed, sharing an indiscernible look with Ryan as he did. The air in the room was tense in a way Shiro couldn’t read, or maybe didn’t _want_ to read, was a more accurate assessment. This felt like the conversation with Pidge that was still ringing in his head, and falling asleep on the couch with the young Galra in his arms. 

“How are you doing with her?” Ryan asked, his deep voice cutting through a room like it always did. Ryan was never as chatty as his boyfriend, words well placed as he remained a quiet presence in conversations. 

“Good,” Shiro said in a lighter voice than he felt. The tailor motioned for him to get down off the pedestal so they could start disrobing him. “I’m getting used to having a kid around, you know? It wasn’t something I was expecting, but I think I’m doing all right with her.” 

“You were always good with us,” Hunk said off-handedly. 

“Yeah, but you were teenagers, barely younger than I was, at that. Small ones aren’t as easy.” He laughed, remembering how daunting it was to be a mentor to the young paladins. 

“You still thinking you might want to have your own?” Hunk asked, his attempt to be casual falling short with overenthusiastic intonation. 

Shiro swore he saw Ryan squeeze his eyes shut and cringe. Shiro let the rhythm of the robes coming off distract him while he thought, the complicated process of disrobing giving him a perfect excuse. Once he stepped out of the outerwear portion, he tested his voice. 

“I want them, with him,” he said. “Watching him with Vara, it's really been something, and I can see us with a family. A kid, maybe two.”

Hunk barked a laugh, earning a glare from the tailor with pins in her mouth working with him. “Wow two! Listen to Mr. ‘I Don’t Think I Want Kids’ now!” 

“Hey come on, I just never gave it serious thought. Now… now I know I do want kids with Keith.” 

Ryan cleared his throat and stepped off his own pedestal to take off the robes. “Curtis never wanted any?” 

“No,” Shiro said. “He’s never wanted kids, was more adamant about it than I was. Actually, surprised me a little bit, so it was another situation where I didn’t have to think about it.” The final layers got shed and Shiro breathed relief at the heavy fabric being off of his shoulders. “Now I think I can do this. I want this, and being with Vara this much is making me anxious about who might take her in. She’s a special kid, you know?” 

Ryan and Hunk exchanged looks like they _did_ know, and Shiro realized just what he’d said. He meant every word, and was distracted the rest of the fitting and the way home worrying about the two families Keith was meeting with that day. 

 

The door shutting felt like it was slamming on his heart. Keith wasn’t sure if the rejection from the family hurt because it was fueling his fever dream of having Vara as family, or if it was because he was failing at finding a home for her. 

This family had given the same reasons as all of the last ones, something that sat in his gut like a stone. His bond was becoming more apparent by the hour, but he didn’t know how it was for Vara. He spent his time now monitoring his interactions with her—physical, spoken, all of it to try and stem whatever could be forming on her end. 

_She’s very endeared to you, if you don’t mind me saying._

_Are you and your mate certain about this? We don’t mean to… impose our own opinions, but as parents of our own kits…_

If anything their commentary showed he was failing spectacularly. 

He trudged back into the living room, ready to ask Vara what she wanted for dinner and was met with her standing with her little fists balled in the middle of the room. 

“ _What’s wrong?_ ” He asked, kneeling down to her. He reached his hand out but she hit it away, something she had never done before, even when he was a new face covered in blood and bruises. “Vara!” 

“ _I hate it!_ ” She shrieked, stomping her foot. “ _Hate it, hate it, hate it!”_

Keith sat back on his haunches, unable to mask the hurt her felt at her lashing out. “ _Hate what?”_

“ _The people! Hate it! Hate them! I don’t want to anymore!_ ” Her little mouth was trembling and fat tears were already streaming down her face. 

“ _Vara, calm down. It’s okay, there aren’t any more people coming today._ ” He slowly reached for her again but she darted away. 

“ _NO!_ ” She reached out and knocked over the half-finished mug of tea one of the wives had been drinking. When it clattered to the floor she screamed again and did it to the other one. 

“Vara!” Keith shouted. “ _Stop that, now!_ ” Panicked anger welled up inside of him. He needed to calm her down, _he_ needed to calm down but he had no idea how. His own emotions were crawling up his throat like they used to, clouding him, narrowing him down to the issue and whatever was the fastest way to stop it. 

She looked up at him, faced scrunched into a scowl, tears still coming, and threw the mug he’d been using into the wall. “ _NO!”_

That was it. His felt his feature shift, felt the growl crawl into his voice, but he was helpless to it. She was misbehaving and that couldn’t happen, she needed to see, needed to understand she was _wrong_ and had to stop. 

How much time passed between the shift and him hearing the door open was lost to him. He didn’t notice the shards of ceramic from the mugs, or the bits of similarly throw and broken toys around them until Shiro’s hand pressed firmly over his shoulder. 

“Keith?” 

He snarled and wretched himself out from Shiro’s grasp, whipping around to yell at him too, when he heard how loudly Vara was crying. Screaming. Still raging on about not wanting any more people… and how she hated him for making her do it. 

Shiro looked stricken at the entire scene and Keith couldn’t take it. He ran to their room and slammed the door, sliding down it onto the floor. 

 

Shiro was sure that this was Karma, or the Fates, or whoever was up in the far heavens looking down on measly mortals, having a great laugh at his expense. 

Keith was wonderful with kids. Keith knew what he was doing with kids. All Shiro really had to do was follow Keith’s lead, and it would all be okay. That was what he’d been telling everyone and himself only to come home to this. 

He had no idea what Vara was wailing about, and even less idea of what Keith had been shouting before he fled to their room. The house was a disaster of throw objects, all clearly done by Vara. Keith, Shiro knew from experience, didn’t leave much of an object behind when he hurled it into a wall out of anger. Their first universal console for the TV had died that way when it refused to connect and customer service was… not entirely serviceable. 

Vara was still crying, but there was less yelling with it now. She’d sat herself on the floor and was picking up a toy she’d broken, crying harder when she saw what had happened. 

Shiro closed his eyes and took a steadying breath. First thing was to get her up and into a space where she couldn’t accidentally cut herself on the ceramic shards. Also, to make sure she hadn’t done that already. 

He moved slowly, letting her see him coming, and then reached out his arms. She reached back and he carefully scooped her up, looking over her for any cuts. Finding none he set her on the couch and motioned for her to stay, only moving on when she nodded. 

Ceramic pieces first, then plastic, then vacuum, he said to himself. Through his cleaning Vara sniffled on the couch with her broken toy, and Keith remained silently in the bedroom. Shiro used the moment to gather himself up for what to do next. He couldn’t ask Vara what happened, not without Keith, and Keith was clearly not okay. 

Once everything was cleaned up he called Krolia, briefly explaining what happened, and waited for her on the couch. Vara held up the toy to him, eyes big and sad. 

“You did a number on it, didn’t you?” He said quietly. It was a model of a pre-Empire Galra cruiser. The cannon was broken off, fisted in her hand with half of the bow. Shiro gingerly took the pieces from her and looked them over, and smiled when he saw the breaks were along junction seams. 

“We can fix it,” he told her. His smile seemed to allay her fears and she curled into his side, sniffling a bit. He set the pieces on the coffee table and pulled her up into his lap. She was still there, hiding in his chest when Krolia walked in. 

“Where’s Keith?” she asked first, shutting the door quietly behind her. 

“In our room,” Shiro said. At the sound of Krolia’s voice Vara peeked out, eyes still red but no longer weeping. “Can you take her? I want to go talk to him.” 

Krolia came over and sat on the couch, deftly pulling Vara into her arms. They started talking immediately and Shiro left them to it. 

He had no idea what he was going to find on the other side of their door. Knocking to at least alert Keith, he stepped in slowly, waiting for a reaction. 

There was none, Keith wasn’t in the room proper. Shiro shut the door and sighed, moving around the bed and into the bathroom. 

Keith was curled up in the tub in the dark, head resting on his knees that were pulled tight to his chest. Shiro climbed in next to him and squeezed into the space, pulling his own knees up too, and waited. 

This was what he had to do at the Garrison, when Keith had finally started to let him in, and the panic attacks rose up. He felt guilty that he hadn’t been watching for this, making sure Keith was all right. It was true, Keith was good with kids because of his time in the system, but that came with the caveat that Keith had _been in the system_. 

“She wouldn’t calm down.” Keith’s voice was raw, and Shiro noticed his claws, finally. That bad then. “She was angry about having to meet the couple and wouldn’t calm down. And if—if she didn’t calm down then…” He hiccuped, trying to get his breathing under control, and not cry. Shiro had seen it enough to know that Keith wouldn’t let himself cry about this. He couldn’t, because crying got you in trouble too. 

“I know, baby.”

“I didn’t hit her,” he whined. “You know I would never—“ 

“Never, Keith you would never.” 

“But I yelled, so much. And I shouldn’t have but she _wouldn’t calm down_ —”

“Hey, hey.” Shiro finally reached out and pulled Keith in, and Keith went limp like a rag doll against him, clinging to him. “It’s okay. You reacted badly, it happens to all parents. You saw Allura nearly snarl at the twins the other day, and they’re babies.” 

“I _did_ snarl, Shiro. I did and I couldn’t stop it.” Keith was shaking in his arms. 

“And you’re sorry about it, and you know now what can trigger it. I know you, love, and you’re going to use this as a way to keep yourself from doing it again.” Shiro rubbed down Keith’s arms to his claw tips and back up. 

“This is what I was afraid of,” Keith whispered. “This is why I can’t be a dad.” 

“Bullshit.”

Keith pulled back to look up at Shiro, eyes still slitted and glassy from unshed tears. 

Shiro stared him down. “That’s bullshit and you know it. You had a bad reaction, so what? You yelled at a kid, okay, not great, but it also happens. It triggered childhood trauma and now you know you have something you need to work through a little bit more than you thought. It doesn’t mean you’re not fit to be a father, Keith. It just means that you’re fucking human.”

Keith laughed. “Half-human.”

“Whatever.” Shiro pulled Keith’s head down under his chin and held him there. “You know what I meant.”

“Yeah.” Keith reached up and smoothed a hand over Shiro’s shirt. “Is she okay?”

“No, not totally. She broke her cruiser toy and is upset about it, but she’ll be okay. You’ll _both_ be okay.” Shiro pressed a kiss to the to top of Keith’s head. “Can we get out of the tub now?”

Keith sniffed and pressed his nose into Shiro’s neck. “Not yet.”

Shiro sighed and settled in. “Okay.” 

 

Vara was still upset enough when they got out of their room that Keith decided he needed to step out. Let her settle with his mom and Shiro before he tried to talk with her and make it right. 

He also needed time to sort out what he was going to do with the panic still swirling in his chest. Without thinking his feet led him to where Hunk and Ryan were staying, hand poised over the door to knock. He hesitated, feeling bad about interrupting their night for his own issues, he lowered his hand and was still deeply debating when a voice shook him out of it. 

“What’s got you so nervous about talking with Hunk, man?” 

Keith turned and cursed himself for not even noticing Lance sitting out in the courtyard, tumbler of some drink in hand. He was really not okay if he didn’t even see that anyone was out here. He cleared his throat and walked away from the door. “Just, wanted to ask him something, talk something out with him, you know. Hunk’s always good for that.” 

Lance nodded and took a sip of his drink. “He really is. He’s also probably fucking Ryan right now if the way they were pawing each other when they got back was anything to go by.” 

Keith shuffled quickly away from the door. “Right, well. Yeah, okay I’ll talk to him later then.”

“You can talk to me, you know?” 

Keith blinked and looked back up at Lance. 

“Yeah, I know. It’s me, and usually I’m heading to you when I really need some sound advice but… you don’t look good, man. And you have to admit, I’ve gotten damn good at listening.” He smirked and shook his glass at Keith. “Want me to go get you one and we can try and wipe that constipated look off your face?” 

Lance had matured a lot, and was in fact a great listener now, and a father himself. Keith shrugged and walked over to the bench. “Sure, sign me up. What are you drinking?” 

“Gin and tonic, mom sent us a couple of bottles and I brought them in case. You want that or a beer?” 

“Beer,” Keith said. “Please. I don’t think I need anything strong right now.”

Lance frowned and set down his glass. “Shit man, something is up. Hold tight, I’ll be right back.” 

While Lance got the beer Keith settled back into the bench, looking around the courtyard. It was spacious enough, decorative trees and benches making it feel like a mini park. There were kids toys strewn about from Vrax’s kits, and now Vara and the twins. Vara was the right age for her to go to school with Vrax’s oldest, when the time came. He wanted that, badly. 

Lance came back out see to Keith’s head tilted back, looking up at the sky in thought. 

“And one beer for the mopey boy,” Lance said. “So, what’s up?”

Keith took the beer without looking, eyes still tracking the stars and absently ticking off which ones he’d been to. “I yelled at Vara. Like, _really_ yelled. Shiro came home and had to take care of it. Even called my mom over.” He leaned forward and took a long sip of his beer. “I fucking lost it.” 

“What happened?” Lance’s tone was even, no hint of judgment at all. 

“She threw a tantrum about meeting couples. I’m… I’m not surprised she did, and I think I would have been fine but she took one of the mugs one of the wives had been using and threw it. Then she did it again with a toy and I…” the panic was crawling back up his throat. 

“Lost your temper,” Lance finished for him. “I get that. And I’ve heard Galra kids get a little more physical in their tantrums, but hell, I’ve even—”

“No.” Keith leaned forward on his knees and shook his head. “No I _lost_ it, Lance. Lost control, went full Galra, snarling fangs and all. I couldn’t think I just… panicked.”

“Over a broken mug?” Lance was confused, rightly so. It wasn’t something so big Keith should have completely lost his shit like that. 

He knew that. But just thinking about Vara having a meltdown, about something being out of place was making his heart race and his palms sweat. Now that the panic was rising back up, with no immediate danger, he knew his and Shiro’s hunches about the anxiety were right. 

He took a deep breath, shoulders curling in on himself as he started. “I was in the system for a long time, and that made me one of the older ones,” he said slowly. “I watched the younger kids, and I was good at it. But that also meant I had to discipline them sometimes, and that wasn’t…” he took a sip of his beer to pull the thought together. “If everything wasn’t perfect when some parents got home, it was my fault. Nothing could be broken, _we_ couldn’t be broken. When I was younger I didn’t have control over the situations at all, so I would just get in trouble. Get yelled at or beat or denied… god, food, water, whatever they wanted to be dicks about that day.

“Not all families were like that, but enough of them, you know? Once I was older it was easier to explain the rules, and the kids under me _knew_ that when I started shouting we needed to get our shit together or we’d all be fucked.” He picked at the label on the beer. 

“Jesus.” Lance took a long drink, staring out into the courtyard. “Fuck, man, that’s… shit.” 

“Yeah.” Keith took his own sip. “That’s why I lost it, I think. It brought back that same panic from when I was in the system. I know that now, but what if there’s more stuff like that packed in the back of my brain?”

Lance swirled the ice around in his glass. “You mean, does this mean you can’t be a dad?” 

“Responsible parents don’t have demons that could go off at any moment,” Keith muttered. 

“Says who?” 

“I mean… it’s not fair to the kid,” Keith said. 

When he looked, Lanced was looking at him like he had two heads. 

“So, Allura and I shouldn’t be parents?” 

“What? No, no you guys are great parents. I meant like—”

“Like if you had childhood trauma or war PTSD? Well, you’re right, neither of us have had crap piled on since childhood, but if you don’t think we both don’t get the screaming nightmares or the weird ass triggers then you’re as dumb as I always said you were.” It was in Lance’s eyes too, the haunted look of someone who knew what it was like to have deep trauma slashed into your soul. Maybe he didn’t have the same PTSD as Shiro or Keith, any maybe the shit he’d seen wasn’t as objectively fucked up, but PTSD was PTSD, and he was right. 

Keith looked away in shame. “You… you have a point there.” 

“I know I fucking have a point, you dimwit. Stop beating yourself up, man, you had a bad moment. You know it, you’re learning from it, and you’re gonna make up with your kid.” Lance knocked his shoulder on Keith’s. “You’re gonna be a good dad, Keith. You and Shiro. Vara’s really lucky.” 

Keith choked on his beer. “Vara’s not our kid, Lance.” 

“Right.” Lance snorted. “And I’m fucking Farkon the Mall Cop.” 

 

Night was bleeding into very early morning when Keith came back in their door, looking for all the world like a kicked puppy. Shiro was on the couch, surfing through news and trying to see how long he could stay on any channel before their impending nuptials came up. He shouldn’t have been surprised by the coverage their wedding was getting, but it still felt strange to see himself marching up the Kral Xion in armor. 

“Hey,” he said, watching Keith quietly shut the door behind him. “You feeling better?” 

Keith nodded and took a long breath. “Vara?”

“In bed, totally fine. Krolia calmed her down and the kid didn’t even peep about you getting mad. Apparently terrible twos for Galra kids result in a lot of parental growling too.” Shiro raised an eyebrow at his fiancé, hoping the point got across. 

“That wasn’t the only thing going on and you know it,” Keith muttered. He looked like he was going to fly back into a fight about it, but to Shiro’s surprise, he deflated. “It is nice to know that it wasn’t all my fucked up past, though.” 

“Nope,” Shiro said, popping the P. “It was also the Galra biological need to posture when threatened. Just like big dumb birds.” 

Keith snorted and came to the couch. “I thought you always compared us to cat people?”

“Bird have more impressive posturing, less hissing, and more wing-flapping extravagance.” He pulled Keith down to snuggle into the couch with him, hauling Keith’s legs up over his lap. “Apparently, according to your mother, the rough play with kids helps them figure out how to address dominance situations.” 

“Mmm, I think she may have won this round when I ran.” Keith played his fingers over the seams of Shiro’s prosthetic hand curled around his side. “I thought we agreed no news when we’re off duty?” 

The screen was blaring on about a grain shortage from bad weather on a planet two galaxies over and the Blades sent there to help out. Shiro turned it off. 

“I was bored and can only take so much Disney. Plus we’ve been out of action for a while with the wedding stuff, I wanted to just check in on the universe.” He leaned down and kissed Keith softly. “What do we have tomorrow?” 

“I think we’re just doing setup here, what we can, at least, for tables and the rest. Day after is rehearsal in the evening, everyone in the ceremonies going over all of the parts. And there are three families coming to see Vara that day too.” His voice became strained saying it, like the mere thought of going through another meeting was going to kill him. 

Shiro swallowed. “You want me to take over the meetings? You can go work on wedding stuff and take a break from it. I know it’s stressing you out.” 

Keith turned to look up at him. “You sure?” 

“Yeah, you’ve been shouldering it alone. Let me take care of these ones, okay?” 

Keith chewed his lip but nodded. “Yeah, okay. Thank you.” He looked back down at where he was still tracing patterns into Shiro’s hand. 

Shiro frowned. “You’re really okay?” 

“Not all the way yet, no,” Keith admitted. “But I will be.” He pushed up from their embrace and slinked off the couch. “I’m going to go check on her.” 

He watched him go, the soft lilt of Keith’s voice calling out to Vara in Galran warming his heart, the sight feeling so natural it almost hurt to see. It would be like that with their own children, Keith getting so soft around them, Shiro himself seeking to fix anything that hurt them. Vara’s toy was already fixed with a little glue and was drying in the kitchen. Krolia had been amazing with her, calming her down and explaining the dominance ritual in what he assumed was the Galran version of kid speak. Vara had calmed down and colored with Krolia like nothing at all had happened. Shiro expected that when they met with families in two days time her tantrum would show back up, but they could handle it. 

He could handle getting her through families looking to adopt her. Keith was still leaning against the guest room door, braid trailing down his back and stance relaxed and happy. Meeting families with the little girl on the other side of that room would be fine. 

 

No one thought to inform him of the fact that a _true_ sunny day on Daibazaal was rare and god-awful. Lance wiped sweat off his forehead again and swore he felt little pimples popping up along his hairline as he did. The sun, unfiltered by atmospheric clouding and amplified by the other dwarf star in the system during this week of the year, was hell. All of the Galra around him were either immune to it or wearing the same sunblock Shiro had offered him that Lance had scoffed at, citing his Cuban heritage. 

He had made a grave mistake. He would have asked his dance-slash-combat-floor building buddy where to go grab some, but he didn’t want to become collateral damage. 

“Mother fuck— _get in the damn hole you sonnuva—_ Oh. OH. Okay that’s how we’re going to play it? I am the GOD of your world you little piece of—”

“Keith, it’s a rod that clicks into place, buddy,” Lance said slowly, having clicked two of his into place. Keith had been gravely insulting the extended families of the base pieces for the better part of an hour now. Lance had gotten up and asked Shiro if he needed to be concerned and been laughed off. _“You should have seen him putting the dining room table together_.” 

Lance never wanted to see Keith put anything together up close ever again. From a safe distance, however, he could see why Shiro found it endlessly amusing to watch Keith get inordinately frustrated with inanimate objects. There were several new and innovative ways to cuss Lance was excited to try out. 

“Yeah, yeah that’s right you metallic little taintbag, get in your fucking hole.” Keith was twitching as the rod finally clicked into place.

“Bro… you need to get a new sparring module or something, no object deserves that much hate,” Lance said, fiddling with a new rod. 

“Everything that doesn’t bend to my will deserves it,” Keith muttered darkly. 

“Whatever you say, man…” Lance went back to his own rods. They were almost done with the under-floor setup so the thing wouldn’t collapse under the weight of dancing people and possible combatants. Kolivan had assured them it would hold before leaving with Krolia to make the wedding bower, which, in Lance’s opinion, was a misnomer. The thing they were constructing just outside of the compound in a local ‘wedding bower sanctioned’ area was more like an ornate, small, one-time-use outbuilding. Post wedding ceremony Keith and Shiro would move there with the Priest to commence the final parts of the marriage and also, without the priest, the consummation. Keith had gone bright red that morning when the schedule of events had included christening the marriage.  

“Hey kiddo, you can’t be here.” The change in Keith’s tone made Lance look up to see Keith scooping up Jasper and cradling him against his hip. “Were you coming over to see Papa? Huh? Did you escape your aunties? C’mon, let’s get you back.” 

“Tía! Tía!” 

“Go with Uncle Keith to see tía Veronica, mijo,” Lance said, waving at his son. Jasper took solidly after Allura, white hair and jewel bright eyes. Juniper was starting to look more like him though, her hair darkening the older she got, though she too had her mothers eyes. To Allura’s poorly disguised delight both children also had her ears. 

Keith deposited Jasper with his sister on the play mat, Veronica looking shocked to find her nephew had wandered off. To be fair, both she and Axca had been engrossed with Vara, teaching her to play a game with them. She became instantly distracted when she saw Keith, her face lighting up and reaching for him. Keith went, drawn like a moth to a flame, and nuzzled against her cheek. 

Lance didn’t miss the face Axca made at the display, or how at ease Keith was doing it. He turned away to snap the final rods in place, mind brewing. 

“I see you made up?” He said casually when Keith was back in earshot. 

“Yeah,” Keith sighed, picking up a piece cushioning to layer over the support frame of the floor. “She didn’t even really register it I guess. Spats with Galran toddlers are actually pretty normal for dominance behavior stuff, according to my mom.” 

“Huh,” Lance sat back on his heels and watched Keith calmly lay down the sections. “Fancy that. So your freak out last night was even _less_ of a problem! See? You’re a great dad.”

“I’m not her dad.” 

“You want to be.” 

“Not the point, Lance.” The section he was holding onto dropped to the ground as he growled the sentence out. “I mean, of course I care about her, she’s been with me for almost a month now. And I—”

“Am her father now. Keith, we can all see it, I don’t think it’s gonna go away, buddy.” It wasn’t like they all hadn’t been trying to tell the pair since the declaration, this shouldn’t have been a surprise to Keith, Lance pushing it. From the twisted look on his face it wasn’t, but Keith was still fighting it. “Keith… why not? And don’t give me some bullshit reason either. Why haven’t you talked to Shiro about it?” 

Paneling got picked back up and roughly jammed into place. “Shiro doesn’t want kids.”

“He does,” Lance countered. “Hunk and Ryan have been poking at him for information. Also, you’re not fucking blind, you can see how he looks at her just like the rest of us. Try again.” 

The panels were getting shoved into place so hard Lance was sure they were going to break. “He’s not ready for kids right now, and frankly I don’t think I am either. We’re about to get married, for fuck’s sake, this isn’t the time.” 

“You don’t think you’re ready, or you’re still scared you’re going to fuck it up?” If he kept this up Keith was going to shatter the dance floor before the actual final tiling was even laid out to secure it in place. 

“Of course I’m scared I’m going to fuck it up! I think I already have fucked it up!” Keith was hissing, his voice not carrying beyond the two of them, but it the emotions behind it were loud as ever. “There’s a bond forming and my dumbass self let it happen unchecked _again_. First I saddle Shiro with a one way mate-bond, and now I get us a kid through more dubious biological entrapment? Yeah, great way to start a family, Lance.” 

Surprisingly the last panel didn’t snap under the force., Lance, however, thought that Keith just might. “You didn’t know. And the whole time you’ve been trying to find her a different home. it’s not like you just let it slide, Keith. And it isn’t fair if you don’t at least let Shiro decide on his own, you have to talk to him.” 

Silently Keith started to put the final tiles in place, this time with concentration and precision. “We need to get this done.” 

“Keith—”

“You think you’re the first one to come to me?” Keith fitted the next piece in with the facade of calm Lance associated with Mission Keith. “You’re a number on a list that includes myself. I _know_ I should, but I know Shiro, too. And if I say that I want this, out loud, he’s going to say yes no matter how he feels about it. Ever since I got fucking sick he has a habit of making sure my needs are met, which is great, but he forgets himself sometimes. I _can’t_ risk that being one of those times. Can you understand that?”

Across the yard Lance could hear the kids playing and laughing together. In front of him he could see the sound breaking his friend. 

 

_The soft purr was nearly drowned out by normal house noises, but it was there in his arms and he could feel it just as sure as he could feel it when Keith was doing it._

_“He’s not going to ask you,” Krolia sighed, her hands clasped in front of her. “So I am, because I see the connection forming in both of you. Maybe yours isn’t a physical thing, but it’s there, Shiro. I don’t need your answer to be yes when it’s a no in your heart. But I’m asking you, please at least think about it.”_

Three families. Just three families to meet with, vet within an inch of their lives, and go from there. Shiro could do this, and hopefully in the process figure out exactly where he stood on the entire situation, which if all three denied like the rest of them had, he’d have a lot of time for. He’d decided the day before that if all three turned the offer down he was going to insist they wait until after the wedding to keep looking. Waiting could end with the decision being made for him by Galra Biology, but he didn’t much care. 

That alone should have been his answer, but each time he followed that path his mind inundated him with fears about fatherhood he’d never considered, most of which centered around just how much responsibility it was to take on another lifeform. The rest of it was the all-encompassing fear of discovering he could love something else as much as he loved Keith. 

Love wasn’t a finite resource, he knew that objectively, but in practice it was scary to think that he had the depths of it to cover a being so terribly dependent on himself and his partner. 

These were the thoughts swirling in Shiro’s mind throughout the first visit. He barely registered the interaction, which was all well and good since it was almost less than fifteen minutes long. He caught something to the effect of ‘we understand your reasoning for trying to find her a family, starting one so early can be daunting, but we don’t want to separate her at this stage either.’ One of the wives had even said something in a careful and concerned way about Shiro speaking further with his mate before continuing the search. Shiro had readily agreed with the statement only to belatedly realize that may have been too much information to give a complete stranger. 

He remained in the haze while he and Vara played the game Veronica had taught her yesterday—a variant of the dots and boxes game—when the second couple arrived. 

From the moment they stepped in Shiro felt like he was being held on trial. They were clearly from the Empire’s former upper caste, the husband with his nose almost up in the air and the wife with her imperial rank still pinned to her lapel. Hopefully the lingering trace of Keith on Vara, Shiro was sure it was solidly there at this point, would ward them off like the others. 

“This is her then?” The husband, whose name Shiro entirely forgot and didn’t care to dig up, said airily. 

“Yes, this is Vara,” Shiro said stooping down to pick her up and bring her to the seats proper, instead of sprawled on the floor between the kitchen and the living room. “She’s been a little trooper through all of this.” 

“Pure Galra children are quite resilient, Ambassador,” the wife quipped. Shiro found himself quickly wanting to let his Terran manners take over. “Isn’t that right, Varak?” 

“Quite,” the husband grunted. 

From his place in front of their bedroom door The Wolf stirred for the first time that day, lifting his head to stare at the couple. They missed the motion, but Shiro did not. 

They remained stiff through their interaction with Vara. Each time they touched her, and they unsubtle examined her a few times, she twitched like she wanted to run from their hands, but knew that she needed to stay still. Shiro wondered if other families had done this too, even though the sweet women from earlier had not. The wife was saying something now, looking Vara over and making her turn. It soured something inside of Shiro to see her do it. 

The husband chuckled, an offhand comment made as they looked over Vara, and she _snarled_. Even when she and Keith had been at odds a few days ago she hadn’t done that. Though perhaps she’d learned it _from_ Keith in that moment, dominance play and all. 

The couple jumped back at the sound and Shiro shot forward, concern for Vara finally outweighing his nerves about stepping on cultural boundaries. “What happened?” He surprised himself with the sternest of his voice. 

Varak too, apparently, as he jerked at the tone. “I merely said that she’d make a fine daughter for a proper Galran house.” 

“No!” 

Shiro jumped out of his skin hearing Vara shout that. He was about to reach for her but _she kept shouting_. 

“No! Keef isn’t a half-breed! He’s a warrior… and strong, and good and you’re mean! You’re weird and mean and you don’t smile and _I don’t like you!_ ” She flipped into Galran, continuing her tirade until Varak’s lip was curling and the wife looked like she wanted nothing more than to beat Vara. 

Vara picked up on it herself and scrambled up into Shiro’s lap, throwing her arms around his neck. “I don’t want you!” She shouted in Universal. “ _Go away!_ I want Shiwo and Keef!” 

“Well! You’re never going to find a family to take her in if you let her behave—”

“Did you call my mate a _half-breed_?” 

The wife cleared her throat. Shiro knew how imposing he looked right now, aware of how his floating arm was curled into a tight metal fist. The wife carried on, a proud Galra through and through, though the tremor in her voice was prominent. “A _pure_ Galran child deserves to be in a home of her kind, her _peers_ , I commend you and your… partner for your attempts at understanding _our_ culture but you simply are not fit for raising—”

“ _Get out.”_

“Now hold on just a moment—”

“ _OUT!”_

Shiro did not stand to see them scramble up and go, but the Wolf did, growling at them until the door slammed behind their sorry asses. Vara was still clinging to him like a limpet, pushing her cheek against his, like she and Keith did. Shiro felt like an idiot for only now fully understanding the gesture for what it was. Mimicking the action wasn’t as easy as he thought, but Vara made no protest at his poor attempt, her tiny purr resurfacing. Keith was going to be furious he that he’d missed it twice now. 

Shiro did his best to bank any anger at Keith for not saying anything. There was a high probability that, like their own bond, Keith didn’t realize what had happened. Or he had and didn’t know what to do about it and was still waffling over it like the over-thinker he was. 

Vara broke his train of thought. “I don’t want to meet more people,” she mumbled, still burrowed into Shiro.

Carefully, mindful to still keep her close, Shiro pulled her back to look at her. Her mouth was wobbling and fat tears were sitting in her amethyst eyes. “How long have you understood us?”

Vara’s face scrunched up, clearly not understanding the question. “I don’t want to go,” she told him instead. “I want Keef and Shiwo. Don’t want to go away.” 

He opened his mouth to reassure her that the family she left with wouldn’t be like that one, but then Shiro thought about it. About someone actually taking her out of his arms and his life and walking away with his little girl— 

Oh. _Oh._ Okay then.

“You’re not.” His voice was wobbling too now, breaking over the words. “You, my little darling, aren’t going anywhere.” 

Shiro pulled her back in and tried to keep his crying to a minimum. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, but it was clear as day now. There was nowhere else for him to hide after this, any inhibitions squashed by the simple fact that the child in his arms was his, and Shiro was always unabashedly selfish with what was granted at his own. Even if he had to fight his own self-denial-happy-spouse over it, Vara wasn’t going anywhere. 

They spent the rest of the day watching movies, Shiro marveling at how much language Vara had picked up from them both in these short weeks. Krolia had said Galra children were quick studies, but seeing it in Vara was blowing his mind. 

Keith came home, laden with small boxes, to Vara half singing along with and half making up the words to Moana as she danced around the living room. Shiro couldn’t miss the soft look on Keith’s face and how he tried to blink it away once he realized what he was doing. It took massive self restraint to not roll his eyes at Keith’s self-sacrificing stupidity. 

Shiro took a deep breath and herded Keith into the kitchen, before he could get wrapped up in Vara.

“Well? Did any of them work out?” Keith asked, unloading the boxes of wedding programs from his arms. 

Shiro started to help organize the thin boxes on the counter. “First couple declined, I kicked the second couple out, and canceled the third.” 

Keith dropped the box in his hands on the floor, missing the counter completely, programs and to-be-mailed formal announcements spilling out around them. “What? Kicked out? Why?” 

Shiro bent down to start tidying the mess of paper. “The second couple wanted to ensure she was raised in a proper Garlan home, and not with a ‘half-breed’. They said it in Galran, but Vara chewed them a new one, and then I did when she told me what they said.” He stood and set the papers on the counter. “In Universal, by the way.” He moved to stand in front of Keith, making sure there were no errant papers on the floor for him to slip on. 

“When she… she’s speaking? To you?” Keith’s mouth refused to close. “Since when could she speak—”

“I have no idea, but I canceled the other couple’s meeting after that.” Shiro crowded Keith a little more, hoping to keep him on his toes so he stayed honest. 

“Was she too upset for it?” 

“No,” Shiro took one more step and Keith finally tensed up at his proximity. “I was. Because I realized something, and I think you have too, but you don’t want to tell me.” 

Keith swallowed tightly and closed his eyes. “Shiro—“

“So you did realize it.” Shiro fought the urge to swear loudly. “ _Why_ didn’t you say anything?” 

Keith’s eyes flashed open, slitted and yellowed. “And saddle you with another bond you didn’t choose? Just weeks before our wedding? No, Shiro, I wasn’t going to do that to you.”

“But you were going to do it to yourself, _and_ Vara?” Keith flinched and Shiro pushed. “You don’t think that she’s probably bonded right back? What do you think that tantrum the other night was about? God, you’re so self-sacrificing sometimes it drives me crazy.” 

Keith laughed wetly and wiped at his nose. “Yeah well, I was going to tell you. After these couples, I really was. I just… they were the last ones scheduled and if Vara had taken a liking to them I wasn’t going to stand in the way of that. I might have landed myself in this mess but I know you’re not ready for this, Shiro, and I’m not going to force it on you because my biology is stupid.”

“Stop assuming where I’m at with things.” He reached out and cupped Keith’s face in his left hand, ring winking under the kitchen lights. “Baby, you know me better than anyone in the universe but you still can’t read my mind, and right now my mind is kinda pissed off that you almost let us give up our daughter.” 

“I know, I’m sorry, but with the wedding and everything else I just… I…” Keith’s eyebrows drew together, eyes desperately searching Shiro’s. “What did you just say?” 

Shiro brought his other hand up to cup Keith’s face, thumbs brushing over his cheeks. “I’m sorry it took me a little bit longer. If _someone_ had straightforwardly said something it might have clicked sooner.” 

Keith sucked in a sharp breath. “Mom’s been on my ass about it since I brought her home.” 

“I know, and almost everyone else has been trying to get it through my dense head since the Declarations.” He pulled Keith close and pressed their foreheads together. “I’m scared.”

“I am too,” Keith whispered. “But I can’t stand the idea of her going to someone else. It feels like letting someone rip out a piece of me.”

“That’s how I felt this afternoon. That second family was looking at her like a prize animal, I wanted to physically throw them out,” Shiro said. He rocked them back and forth, anxiety crawling up his throat. “Can we do this?”

Keith nodded. “Yeah, yeah we can. We won’t be perfect, but what parents are?” 

Shiro whimpered and let his head fall onto Keith’s shoulder. “Oh my god, we’re parents. What the fuck, _Keith_.” 

“I know.” He pushed a hand up into Shiro’s hair and scratched at his undercut. “I’ve been getting pep talks from Lance the last two days.” 

Shiro laughed into Keith’s shoulder. “Hunk and Ryan on my end, though Pidge gave me an earful the day after our Declarations.” 

“That should have been our first clue,” Keith muttered. Tension snuck into his body, a long breath getting sucked in as it did. “I have the documents.” 

Well. That was not something Shiro expected in his long list of things that Keith might have to say on the matter. “How long?” 

“Since I landed with her,” Keith admitted quietly. “They just handed them to me when I registered her. They did a database search for any extended family and since there was none, and she refused to leave me, they gave me temporary custody along with proper adoption forms.”

Shiro groaned and squeezed Keith just shy of too hard. “You’re ridiculous.” 

“Hey, I wasn’t going to question it, not when I didn’t want to leave her either.” He pressed his face into Shiro’s shoulder. “Should we tell her?” 

Fear crept up Shiro’s throat at the thought of making it official with Vara. The image of her rejecting them flitted across his mind, despite her loud and very passionate displays of wanting to stay. When he looked, she was already at the edge of the kitchen, little toes poked over onto the tile. 

“Hi, baby girl,” Shiro said, the endearment rolling off his tongue easily, like he’d been using it all along. 

“Are you mad?” she asked in a very tiny voice, ears flicking down. 

Shiro didn’t miss the little breathy inhale Keith made. “No,” Keith said and knelt down in front of her. “We’re not mad, little one, we were just talking.”

More fidgeting toes, curling and uncurling into the floor enough that Shiro suddenly wondered about the dexterity of Galran feet and if it was something he’d have to learn about for his daughter. 

That word wasn’t getting easier to even think, it sounded big in his head, bigger out loud, and bigger than he’d imagined. It felt right, undeniably so now, but it was so very _big_. 

“What was it?” Vara asked. 

“What were we talking about?” Keith looked back to Shiro and raised an eyebrow. Shiro shrugged, just as clueless as Keith, and made a gesture indicating he was following Keith’s lead. A fang popped out and worried the corner of Keith’s mouth before it looked like he made a decision. “Well,” Keith started, “we were talking about you, little one, and how we don’t think we like families coming in to talk with you.” 

“I hate it,” she muttered. “They’re mean.”

“Not all of them were mean,” Keith said softly. “But even the nice ones, I don’t think you wanted to go with them, did you?”

“I like you. I like Shiwo. I want to stay.” Her bottom lip wobbled and she kept looking away from them both as she said it. 

“Oh, Vara.” Keith leaned forward and enveloped her in his arms. 

Shiro went down to sit beside them both, putting a had on Vara’s back and rubbing it. “We want you to stay too, Vara. Would that be okay? If you stayed with us?” 

Vara looked up from Keith’s shoulder. “Like… like _pata_?”

He recognized the Galran word and smiled. “Yeah, like _pata._ Or sometimes we say papa, or daddy.” 

Vara giggled. “You say it funny!” 

“Well, I don’t think I’m _pata_ then,” Shiro chuckled. 

Vara giggled again and then grew very serious, looking between them. “You’re _Pata_ ,” she said to Keith. “And you’re…” she frowned, little mouth testing out the new word, “Daddy?”

“Daddy,” Shiro repeated, throat tight. “I like that, baby girl.”

“M’not a baby,” Vara said, the pout getting deeper. 

“No, but I’d like it if you were my baby girl, is that okay?” 

Vara thought and then looked at Keith, whose eyes were wide and glassy. “Am I your baby girl, too?”

“Yeah.” Keith’s voice wobbled. “Yes, you’re my baby girl too, _Ahar_.” 

Vara squeaked and buried her face in Keith’s shoulder again at the familial endearment. The picture of it, Keith holding their little girl under the kitchen lights while he looked on, made relief wash through Shiro. The weight of not knowing was gone, and in its place a feeling of rightness. 

“Keith?” 

Keith looked up from where he’d been nuzzling his cheek against Vara’s, faint purring from him cutting off. “What is it?” His eyes narrowed, worry creasing his brow. 

It still took Keith a while to process good things happening to him, even now. Shiro smiled and held up his free hand. “Nothing bad, just we’re expecting everyone for dinner here pretty soon. You want me to message Hunk and ask if he can come help cook? I think this one is gonna be attached to one of us all night.”

Keith visibly relaxed and nodded. “Please?”

Shiro got up and sent a message to Hunk, barely able to take his eyes off Keith standing with Vara and taking her to cuddle on the couch. They’d need to get permanent things for her now, decorate her room, find a school… and the wedding. 

He dialed himself back from the panic zone and finished the message to Hunk. They had their whole family around them, and they’d get it worked out. The hardest part was over now. 

 

Not long after Hunk arrived with Ryan in tow to help, Vara fell asleep on Keith’s chest. For a split second he thought about taking her to her room, and dismissed it just as quickly. She was his now, and he was going to hold her like this as long as he could. 

He was so busy tracing a finger over the braids Shiro had just put in that morning that he didn’t notice his mother come in and sit next to him. 

“Oh, Keith.” 

He startled at her voice. She was looking at him like she had been since he brought Vara home, but without restraint. He smiled up at her, unable to help it bubbling out from his chest. “It’s okay, Mom.”

Krolia frowned and sat next to him, looking between him and Vara. “Is it though?” 

“Yeah.” Keith leaned down and pressed a kiss to Vara’s crown. “It is. What do you want her to call you and Kolivan?”

She gasped and reached her hand out to smooth over Vara’s hair. “Kolivan will want to be _Av’Patar_ , but you father always talked about his Nana, your great-grandmother, and I think…” she swallowed. “I think I rather like how that sounds.” She laughed wetly. “Though, knowing children she’ll find her own names for us.”

“She will,” Keith said. “Are we doing the right thing?” 

Krolia moved her hand to stroke over his cheek. “Yes, Little Star, if this is what you both feel is the right place for her, then it’s very much the right thing. And I think a good deal of us have been hoping you would both choose this.” 

Keith chuckled. “I know, you were all getting less and less subtle.”

“I was never subtle about it.” 

“That you were not. Oh, hello _Ahar_ , _was that a good nap_?” 

Vara blinked her eyes open and stretched, uncaring of how her joints poked into all of the soft places on Keith at once. “Yeah, good nap.” She blinked again and turned. “Krolia!” 

Luckily his mother was ready for Vara launching herself into Krolia’s arms and excitedly telling her that Keith and Shiro were going to be her Dads now. Krolia listened with rapt attention, eyes shining the whole time. 

Keith stretched and got up, letting his arms have the break while he could. Kolivan was standing by the door still, clearly meaning to give him and Krolia a moment alone, and nodded at him approvingly. Keith had to keep himself from laughing at just how many of their friends and family had been waiting for this conclusion. 

Hunk was playing drill Sargent in the kitchen, Shiro running around helping with prep. Ryan was sneaking bits of food when they were both distracted. He handed Keith a slice of bread covered in a cheese spread without a word when he came up. 

“So, is Hunk officially Uncle Hunk yet or do we need to have a pointed conversation with you too?”

Keith avoided choking on the bread, but only barely. Ryan waited patiently for him to recover and formulate an answer, which was a mistake. “What, you don’t want to be Uncle Ryan?”

It was Ryan’s turn to start coughing on his own shock, a fierce blush crawling up his neck and face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered when he got his breath back. 

“Sure.” Keith pointedly looked down to where Ryan was clutching his jean pocket. “Just like there isn’t a box crammed into your pants pocket right now, just like it had been for the last three days, because you keep waiting for the right moment while you’re whisked away to an oppressively romantic wedding ceremony.”    

“I wouldn’t call it oppressively romantic. It’s been a very beautiful time watching you go through all the wedding rites.” He tried to casually move his hand to just rest over the pocket. 

“It’s insane and I’m ready for the other side of it. We have adoption papers to file,” Keith said. Across from them Hunk was coming close to smacking Shiro with a rolling pin. Keith hadn’t seen Shiro so completely cowed in a long time and fought the urge to take a video of it. 

“I, uh, I like the sound of Uncle Ryan, if that’s all right.” He cleared his throat. “And you know, if Hunk um, if he, you know…”

“He’ll say yes,’ Keith said. “Hey, Hunk!” He kept a straight face while Ryan turned to him in absolute terror. “Got a question for you.” 

Beside him Ryan was nearly vibrating.

“How is your soon-to-be-husband so entirely incompetent when it comes to measuring liquids? Yes, Keith, I too have that question!” 

“Hey!” Shiro ducked another swipe from the rolling pin. 

“Nah, I’m well aware of his shortcomings in the kitchen. Just wanted to know what you thought about Uncle Hunk?” 

Ryan deflated beside him and Keith only felt a little bit bad. There wasn’t time to properly rib Ryan though because Hunk rounded the kitchen island to pull Keith into a bear hug. 

“Oh thank god! I was just telling Ryan that if we had to try and have another talk with either of you I was going to have to do it drunk!”

Keith patted Hunk’s back and waited patiently to be put down. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Shiro dump a measuring cup of something into a bowl, glaring in their direction. 

The rest of the night he and Shiro took turns letting everyone know Vara would be a permanent member of the family. Lance crowed obnoxiously at the announcement.

“I knew you’d get your shit together, Keith,” Lance smacked him on the arm with a grin. 

Keith pushed Lance away by the face and moved in to hug Allura, whose arms were out for him. “I’m so very happy for all of you,” she said holding him close. “We hope that this would be the outcome from the moment you brought her home.”

Keith let out another shaky breath, the reality of it still settling over him. “Me too,” he said. “Me too.” 

 Vara for her part, took great delight in telling everyone she could, in a mix of Galran and Universal, that Shiro and Keith would be her dads and how very final that was. 

Dinner had eventually spilled outside, as it often did, some of the others in their complex coming out to enjoy the night and subsequently offer congratulations. Vrax had actually blinked in shock when told, quickly informing Keith that he hadn’t ever been under the impression that they _weren_ ’ _t_ keeping Vara. 

“We had families coming in!” Keith sputtered. 

Vrax shrugged. “I figured it was a show between you and the families to make it look like you made an effort at finding a fit before just declaring her for family. It’s not an uncommon thing in the adoption process here, so that it doesn’t look like you’re just claiming a lost child. Though I did think you were dragging it out a bit, no one was going to contend for her.” 

Keith had just stared, slack-jawed, until Vara came up and tugged his leg to play with her and her new cousins. 

The night wore on into the small hours of the morning, Krolia eventually herding everyone back to their homes since rehearsals would start the next day. Shiro carried Vara in, cradled in his arm, her face tucked against his neck while he spoke to her in a low voice. Keith only just caught the conversation as they came close to the front door. 

“What’s she saying?” Keith asked and held the door open for them. 

“She doesn’t want to go to bed yet, she wants to keep playing with the twins. But the twins, are already asleep, and you’re just about there yourself, baby girl.” Shiro pressed his cheek to hers and nuzzled. Seeing the action filled Keith up with warmth, head to toe. 

“ _It’s time for bed, Vara, we’ll have to get up early tomorrow and you can play with them then.”_

Vara lifted her head, her eyes dropping and barely open as she looked at him. “Will you still be _Pata_ in the morning?” 

Keith reached for her and Shiro let her go into his arms easily. “Yes, _Ahar_ , I’ll still be _Pata_ and Shiro will still be Daddy in the morning, _I promise._ ” 

Vara went down easily then, only asking that the Wolf stay in her room with her, not that he could be convinced otherwise at this point. He never strayed far from her anymore, popping in by her side at almost the same moment Shiro or Keith left the room or got too far away from her. Allura had even said on the few occasions she and Lance had watched her these past weeks that the Wolf had popped in to stay with her too. Even the Wolf had known this was the endgame before they did. 

Shiro softly closed her bedroom door, looking fondly after it even when it had clicked shut. “We’re going to have to decorate.” 

“We’re going to have to figure out the Honeymoon,” Keith said. They’d planned to be gone for two weeks after the wedding. 

“We can reschedule, or take her with us. Maybe convince your Mom and Kolivan to come? They can watch her on the days we want to ourselves.” Shiro reeled him in and kissed him soundly. “We’ll figure it out, baby.” 

Keith hid his smile in Shiro’s neck. “Daddy.”

“Oh, _god_ , don’t.” He shook with laughter, trying to keep it down for their sleeping daughter. The thought alone shot Keith through with elation and panic. A shuddering breath escaped his lips. “We’re dads.”

“Mm,” Shiro pulled him just that bit closer and rocked them. “Can’t take it back now. She’ll maul us in our sleep. Or worse, _cry_.” 

Keith couldn’t help but join Shiro in laughing. “We’re not going to be able to punish her. Ever. She’s going to have it over us both with crocodile tears.” 

“Krolia will have to. We’re going to have to call your mom to come and discipline her for us. We’re going to be the world’s weakest parents.” Subtly Shiro started steering them to the bedroom, walking Keith back slowly, hands tracing up under his shirt. “We’re gonna have to get stealthy too. Lots of sleepovers at Nana’s.”

“I can be quiet,” Keith protested. 

“I know you can, I’m worried about me!” Shiro tripped them through the bedroom door and all but yanked them onto the bed, Keith falling on top of him with a grunt. 

“I can gag you, I’m not opposed.”

Shiro sputtered and Keith took the lapse in control to push Shiro’s shirt up and lay soft kisses all over his chest. He pressed his face there, right between Shiro’s pecs and reminded himself to breath for a second, not let his mind dizzy away into planning a wedding and becoming a parent all at once. “I love your tits,” is what he said out loud. 

Shiro snorted and carefully started unbraiding Keith’s hair, knowing that this braid wasn’t one he liked to sleep in. Keith distracted him long enough to get the shirt full off before snuggling back in and letting Shiro work his fingers through his hair, purring as he did. 

They fell asleep like that, murmured suggestions of naked frolicking curtailed by exhaustion and comfort. At some point in the night Keith woke long enough to shrug them both out out clothes and shuffle them under the covers, uncaring that his hair would be a disaster in the morning. It would be dealt with then, along with their family and wedding preparations and their daughter. 

 

Shiro didn’t think that the days could move faster but they did, rehearsals and food prep and on-site ceremony prep eating up entire days in minutes. Their final ceremony was taking place on the ancestral grounds for Kolivan’s clan, which were both nearby and stunningly beautiful, close to one of the largest forests on Daibazaal. Huge tent structures for guests were erected, along with a well-built but simple sort of shed that Lance exclusively called the ‘love shack’ where Shiro and Keith would finalize their marriage, and, once the priest left, consummate it. 

“So,” Pidge said closing their eyes and holding out their hands. “You two are gonna go in there, do the private final vows, and just…”

“Fuck?” Hunk finished for them. 

Keith flipped them both off and walked away from the conversation, leaving Shiro to explain it. Shiro didn’t blame him, Keith had been the one Lance cornered to ask about it. 

“Yes,” Shiro said heavily. He still felt a little conflicted about their first night married being spent so close to friends and family, no matter how cozy and soundproofed the structure had been made. “It’s tradition for the guests to party well into the morning nearby as encouragement to the couple, and so that everyone can be here to congratulate for the morning reception. I guess it’s part of the whole not being able to see us after the final vows.” He cleared his throat. “It’s also been implied that after the vows there’s some devotional stuff between partners that uh, can get a little heated. So best to have that away from the crowd.” That was a lie. There was no implication, there were explicit instructions that Shiro and Keith had gotten from Kolivan in a very clinical and indescribably uncomfortable explanation three days prior. 

“Implied,” Pidge repeated, eyebrow raised. 

“Yes,” Shiro doubled down. “Implied, much like _I_ am implying that’s all the information on it you’re going to get.” 

“I have my ways, Shirogane,” Pidge said, eyes glinting. They opened their mouth for what was surely a kill shot, but was interrupted by a hyper ball of little Galra. 

Vara all but wrapped herself around Pidge’s leg, somehow managing to bounce while she did. “Pidge! Pidge! Pidge! _Pata_ said you could make me a robot Wolf!” 

Pidge’s eyes narrowed. “It’s unbecoming to use your offspring as a tactical advantage.”

“It’s unbecoming to pry into your friend’s sex life sober,” Shiro said. He quickly walked away before they could retort, leaving his toddler with a very put out Pidge. 

At the edge of the guest tent Keith was waiting for him with a smile that Shiro kissed soundly once he was in range. “You sent her over to save me, didn’t you?” 

“Pidge is the last person who needs dirt on our sex life,” Keith said against Shiro’s lips, kissing him again in the process. 

Shiro sighed and moved to press a kiss to Keith’s cheek. Over his shoulder Shiro could see everyone setting up tables, Krolia directing the masses of friends and family like an orchestra conductor, the twins perched adorably on each hip. Allura was busy threading flowers into tent ropes and chandeliers that would be raised into the ceiling with Veronica and Colleen, the flora a mix from  Earth, Altea and Daibazaal. Shiro marveled anew at the sakura blossom branches making up the base of the chandelier, engineered special by Coleen to grow for the wedding _and_ be sterile. 

“I can’t believe everyone is here,” Keith whispered, staring out at the chaos of loved ones. “I can’t believe this is happening.” 

“Can’t you?” Shiro pressed a kiss to his temple. “I’m finding it harder and harder to think how it could have ended up any other way but this.”

“I’ll just have to have you remind me then,” Keith said leaning into Shiro’s embrace. 

Their impromptu moment was interrupted by a shout of glee and Veronica rushing past them out into the field. They turned to see her barrel into Axca, who must have just gotten back from an emergency Blades mission, almost knocking her to the ground and kissing her hard. Acxa took it all in stride, including Veronica taking her face in her hands and then moving down her body to check for any harm. 

“Are we that bad?” Keith asked. 

“No.” They both jumped to see Lance standing beside them, frown on his face. “No you two are way fucking worse, I have literally thrown up watching you two fawn like a tela novela, but they’re still bad. Veronica! Stop manhandling your wife and get back here! You nearly dropped the table on me!” 

“Fuck off, Lance!” Veronica shouted and proceeded to graphically kiss said wife. 

“Axca did just get back from a sudden mission, Lance,” Shiro said. 

“A transport mission!” Lance squawked. 

Keith shot him a look. “You know the mission before wasn’t a smooth one, and this one wasn’t planned. Let her have this.” 

Lance’s frown deepened. “I’m her brother, don’t spoil my fun bitching about her with facts and shit or you can help me with all the tables.”

“Okay.”

“You—Keith—I—Augh!” Lance threw his hands up and stormed off, grumbling. 

Shiro started laughing and couldn’t stop, pressing his fist to his mouth. 

Keith huffed. “I swear he starts fights just for fucking fun.” 

“That’s exactly what he does,” Shiro chuckled. “I honestly think I’d be concerned if you two interacted any other way.” 

Keith hummed and leaned into Shiro. “We had a good heart to heart a few nights before we decided to adopt Vara. It was good, but there was also alcohol. I’d meant to try and talk to Hunk, but Lance was out in the garden and… god, he’s grown up.”

“We all have,” Shiro said. He remembered the constant fear those first weeks on the castleship, trying to be the put-together adult he certainly hadn’t been. “Sentient robot lions and an intergalactic war will do that.”

“Well, yes, but more than that.” Keith turned to look at him. “Once we got Allura back we all started actually looking at ourselves, trying to get help and healthy and I… god, if that hadn’t happened, Shiro—”

“It did.” Shiro kissed his forehead and pulled him close. “It did and we’re here to make terrible decisions that involve us ruining a three year old.”

Keith laughed. “We’re not going to survive her. None of us. And once the twins are old enough we’re all doomed.”

“Well, you and I will be doomed together, so that’s nice.”

“Mm, yeah, it is.”

 

 

 

Dawn broke slowly, pale in its light and quiet, truly still for what felt like the first time in weeks. Keith and Shiro rose together, little more than soft lingering kisses passing between them as they did. These were the last moments they would spend together, just the two of them, until all the ceremonies were over and they were well and truly wed. 

They bathed each other, standing close in the shower and tending to each and every nook on one another’s body. Shiro took his time washing Keith’s hair, coming through the locks until they were soft and smooth, ready for the task ahead. 

It was the last time Shiro would be able to do these braids for Keith, and he’d saved the most intricate for last. Each braid was made with care, his fingers deft and steady as strands were looped and woven until it looked like Keith wore a crown of lace stemming from his temples and cascading down his back. 

Keith touched it with trembling fingers when Shiro was finished, trailing over each ridge and wave. Shiro kissed over his knuckles and pulled him close. 

“Let’s get married.”

 

The entire affair at the Kral Xion felt like deja vu to Keith. He and Shiro were trussed up in amor, greeting more dignitaries than Keith ever wanted to meet in his entire life. Formal entrances, loud and this time pre-written oaths, from himself, Shiro, his mother, and Sam. After that was Allura’s long and frankly impressive Proclamation of Clan Unity, which was a mash up of other pre-written bits from dusty Galran tomes. 

To say that the morning had been hectic and stressful was an understatement, but it wasn’t until now that nerves settled firmly in Keith’s gut. 

“Look there’s a—behind the—yes! That!” Keith sighed when the final latch came undone and let the breastplate fall with a thunk to the ground of the tent. “God I hate that armor.”

“No shit, it’s heavy as fuck,” Lance groaned, shoving the thing out of the way. “How did you and Shiro stand through the ceremony in all of that?”

“Adrenaline? I don’t know, I zoned out at around the sixth stanza of Galrok’s Epic Passion and didn’t come back until the President of Archaxia sneezed.” He yanked off the underclothes and made for the formalwear laid out on the cot, black and red shot through with white, while Shiro’s would be black with purple and white. The sight of it alone felt heavier than the entire morning ceremony at the Kral Xion. 

“That was a truly epic sneeze,” Lance sighed. “Two noses, man, think about the sinus pressure there. I think she thought your mom was going to eat her… Keith? You okay there buddy?”

Outside the tent Keith could hear their guests—their _own_ guests, not the hordes of Coalition officials and heads of state that had crowded into the hall—mingling and preparing. Vara and his mother were outside of his, likely to come in soon, talking about how pretty the hall had been. If he strained her swore he could hear Shiro talking to Matt and Pidge in his own tent. 

And Keith was standing in his underwear staring at his wedding clothes like he was staring down a weblum head-on. 

“Hey.” Lance put a hand on his shoulder. “Keith, you all right?”

“I’m marrying Shiro,” Keith whispered.

“Yeah, man. Hell, you’re halfway married already, if any of those long-ass vows this morning meant anything.” Lance walked around to face Keith, blocking the clothes from sight. “You’re gonna be husbands, and dads, and really freaking great, okay?” Lance glanced over his shoulder and motioned for someone. 

Keith was bodily turned around to see Hunk in his chef’s jacket, food already smeared across the pristine white. 

“He’s freaking out,” Lance said. 

“Of course he is,” Hunk said. 

“I’m right here,” Keith grumbled. 

Hunk grabbed Keith by his shoulders firmly and shook him once. “Hey. You get to have this, okay? You get to marry the man you’ve been in love with since forever, and you get to have a little girl with him, and you get to have all of this, Keith. Okay?” Hunk didn’t even wait for a response and pulled Keith into a tight bear hug. 

“Thanks,” Keith muttered wetly. 

“Anytime, man, it’s what we’re here for. Now I gotta get back to prep so I can be out for the ceremony, but send Lance for me if you have another panic attack, got it?”

Keith laughed and promised that he would. “I’m gonna get married.”

Lance turned him back to the wedding clothes and pushed him toward them. “You sure are, but we gotta get you in more than a pair of boxer briefs to do it. Now can you get your pants on yourself like a big boy or are you going to have another existential moment when you get a leg in?” 

Keith punched Lance in the arm and put his pants on. 

It took both of them tying and untying the thing six times but they got the bowtie done up just as Allura walked in, arms laden with flowers. Behind her was his mother, and Vara, the twins on Krolia’s hips and Vara hanging onto the edge of her dress. 

“Oh, _Keith_ ,” Krolia whispered. 

Allura quickly shoved the piles of flowers onto Lance, nearly tipping him over, so she could take the twins from Krolia. 

“Hi mom,” Keith said and tugged at his sleeves. 

Krolia pulled him into her arms and nuzzled her cheek to his. “I am so proud of you, little star,” she whispered. 

“I love you, mom.” He took several deep breaths to keep from crying. At their feet Vara had one hand on each of their legs, patting them excitedly. 

“ _Me too! Me too!”_

Keith laughed, the sound more like a hiccup the way his lungs were contracting. “ _Come on Ahar, you too._ ” He scooped her up and squished her between them as she squirmed and giggled. 

“ _Not like this Pata!_ Nana let go!”

“You said you wanted up, small one,” Krolia chuckled. She took Vara when she moved back, making room for Lance to step forward. 

“They’re from Earth and Daibazaal, roses and star-eyes,” Allura explained. “We thought they would be best.”

Keith nodded dumbly and sat down, letting his family surround him. Carefully, and with great reverence, Allura ran her fingertips over the elaborate braid Shiro had put into Keith’s hair early that morning. “I… I’m almost afraid to touch it…” she whispered. 

“Here.” There was shuffling behind him and then Lance was seated at his back. “Veronica used to make me help with her hair, said I had the best hands for it. Hand me a rose?” 

With care Keith had only seen Lance bestow on Allura and the twins, he gently tucked flowers into Keith’s braid, never pulling or shifting any of Shiro’s delicate work as he went. His mother and Vara picked out more flowers to adorn Keith with, handing them to Lance one by one. 

Slowly others filtered in, Pidge came in to point out spots for flowers long enough to collect Allura to go to Shiro’s tent. Romelle popped in to help with the twins and stayed to give her own advice on placement. Axca sat down to his side just to send him knowing little smirks. Keith had to keep his eyes on the floor, or the Wolf curled at his feet, to stop himself from butting into the chatter, so he didn’t noticed Kolivan step in and stand at the door until he looked up to say something to Lance. Their eyes caught and Kolivan gave Keith a slow nod, his eyes crinkled at the edges in a way Keith rarely saw. 

“Done.” 

Lance patted Keith’s back and slowly Keith stood, looking around at the family he’d collected on a day he never dreamed of as the firefighter’s son in the system. 

His mother was thinking the same thing, unshed tears shining in her eyes. “He knows,” she said. 

Keith squeezed his eyes shut and took several long breaths. “Okay. I’m ready.” 

“That’s good,” Kolivan said. Keith turned to him curiously. Kolivan just smiled and nodded beside him. 

Hunk was standing there, grin over his face. “We’re ready, bud.” 

Krolia hoisted Vara back up over her hip and held her hand out to Keith. “Oh god,” he breathed, and took his mother’s hand. They exited as a group, his family surrounding him, just as Shiro’s would be already at the altar.  

The main tent was lush with even more flowers, seats arranged away from the tables at the far end where the altar was. In Earth tradition, soft music played out over the scene, Ryan playing guitar, but Keith couldn’t register anything beyond Shiro waiting for him down the aisle, resplendent in black and white and silver.

Hovar was saying something, his voice booming out to announce Keith or beckon the gods or shit Keith did not give a _fuck_ about anything but getting to Shiro, touching him, making sure this was real. 

They grew close, his mother finally giving him a final kiss on the cheek and letting him go to walk to his future husband. Just this morning they had been in front of crowds, declaring their love and devotion in gilded armor to the public, but now felt like the entire universe was narrowed down to watch this moment. 

Shiro was small-eyed and smiling, hand outstretched to Keith. 

Keith was frozen. 

His breath stopped in his lungs, fat tears gathering and instantly rolling down his cheeks, the force of them shaking his lung enough he had to fight to stay quiet. He pressed a hand over his eyes, like he could push the tears back in if he tried. 

“Keith.” 

Strong arms, one warm, one cool, wrapped tight around him, pulling him into safety, into love and home. Keith inhaled Shiro’s scent, listened close for his heartbeat over the noise of the tent and of Hovar’s intoning. He felt wetness at his temple, seeping into his hair as Shiro cried too. 

Once the ground under his feet felt solid again Keith broke their embrace, wiping at his face as he did. “Hey.”

“Hey beautiful,” Shiro said, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead. “Wanna go get married?” 

Keith nearly snorted. “Yeah, yeah, let’s go do that.” 

They turned together to face Hovar, his face impassive to their display, though around them there were telltale sniffles. 

“We gather,” Hovar said. “We gather in honor, we gather in celebration, and we gather in devotion as Takashi Shirogane and Keith of Privak pledge to be life-mates before the witness of their clans and brethren.” He tapped his staff on the ground. “Do all present assent to the union before?”

A chorus of affirmation went up from the guests. 

“And do the clans of the mates accept the vows made in the Holy Hall?” 

“We do,” Allura said, though her voice wobbled. 

“As do we,” Krolia said. From her arms Vara gave her own consent. 

“I like it too! _Pata_ kiss Daddy!” 

For perhaps the first time Keith was monumentally grateful that they had combined ceremony traditions and that Galra had no notion of ‘now you may kiss the bride’ as he leaned in for a quick peck. Shiro grinned at him like he was delirious. 

They were interrupted by Hovar clearing his throat. “Your vows, please.” 

Keith stepped back, one hand still firmly in Shiro’s, the other fishing for the paper he’d tucked into his inner pocket. He shook out the folds and looked over his own scrawled words. 

“Ha, okay. Shiro, we’ve already made declarations of love, you already know what you have meant to me and what you mean in my life. I’m still afraid this is a dream. I still have dreams where this could never happen, and I wake up and you’re there. You hold me through the nightmares and dance with me through the day and I…” Tears threatened to choke him out again and he closed his eyes, only opening them when the beating of his heart was closer to normal. “I love you, Takashi. I have loved you since you took a chance on me and I will love you until the stars collapse into nothing, until even the dust of the universe is swept away and realities fall, and beyond even that. I am honored and humbled that you let me call you mine.”

Shiro squeezed his hand and swallowed. “Right, _fuck,_ I love you.” His eyes went wide and there was polite laughter from those who were close enough to hear his fumble. Shiro cleared his throat. “Keith, I was drawn to you like a spinning planet is to their sun. I could have never guessed what you would be to me, but I can never be more grateful for what you are. Every moment without you was stumbling in a void, and I would crawl my way to the heavens, bloody and broken to keep you by my side for the rest of time and time beyond. I love you, and I am honored and humbled that you let me call you mine.”

“Takashi Shirogane, do you accept these vows?” 

Shiro’s eyes shone. “I do.”

“Keith of Privak, do you accept these vows?”

Keith gave up and just let the tears fall. “I do.” 

Hovar tapped his staff three times to the ground. “By the power of the Gods I declare you wed.” Hovar said a low prayer, quickly, and when he was done Shiro pulled Keith into his arms and kissed him within an inch of his life, the sound of friends and family wildly cheering all around them. 

The party was, in true Galra fashion, _wild_. 

They’d opted out of everything but a first dance, which was held once everyone had chairs back at tables and food in front of them. Shiro had spun Keith around the dance floor to an old song called ‘Mirrors’ that he’d sing to Keith sometimes, Ryan providing the music and vocals for them. Keith had nearly cried again as they danced, Shiro whispering sweetly in his ear the entire time. 

The moment was rounded off by Keith and Shiro feeding each other the first bites of food and from there it was chaos. 

Galran weddings were often celebrated with dances, Galra mead—which was in fact made from a substance very like honey but also _incredibly_ more alcoholic—and ‘clan combat’. In the past this had meant actual combat and occasional deaths at a wedding. Now, and especially here, it was drunken wrestling which kicked off immediately after their dance. 

Keith hadn’t known that he wanted to see Kolivan and Coran duke it out on a dance floor, but he enjoyed the spectacle very much, Coran holding his own more than Keith ever thought he could. 

There was dancing, and the clanging of cutlery for kisses, and arm wrestling for last pieces of cake, and laughter everywhere. They both danced with Vara, who was glued to one of their laps as much as she could be, and they accepted congratulations over her adoption along with those for their nuptials. 

Keith had never imagined a wedding day, and he wasn’t sure he could have conjured up a perfect picture like this even if he had. 

Neither he nor Shiro noticed sundown and were quite shocked when Hovar came to them, letting them know it was time. 

Slowly, those guests who were still lucid enough to do so gathered in two lines, making a walkway for Keith and Shiro. Boughs of luminescent Altean flowers in their hands, intertwined with cherry blossoms created an archway overhead. Keith picked up Vara, nuzzling her cheek and holding her close. 

“ _I’ll see you in the morning, Ahar,_ ,” he said and passed her to Shiro. 

Shiro kissed her cheeks and held her close. “Love you baby girl, we’ll see you for breakfast. Be good for Nana, okay?” 

“Okay, good night,” Vara said, going to Krolia’s arms with ease. She snuggled into her grandmother, the long day making her big eyes droop. 

Keith took Shiro’s hand and they followed Hovar through their friends and family, one last hurdle before they were well and truly wed in the eyes of Galran law. 

“I love you,” Shiro said, pulling Keith that much closer. 

“I love you too,” Keith said, and followed his husband into the small shed decorated with flowers and painted stones. 

 

The inside of the shed looked like a cabin bedroom. There was a bed and a long table adorned with items for the last ritual, but not much else. A window facing out away from the festivities showed a nighttime forest and falling darkness. 

Hovar was holding the door for them, and when they entered he stayed there, facing them in front of it. 

“Kneel.”

They did, the ground hard below them. 

“Keith of Privak, do you swear fealty, devotion, your life and blood to Takashi Shirogane and his kin, that the Gods might bar you from the Holy Lands should you break your vow?” 

“I swear,” Keith said. 

“Takashi Shirogane, do you swear fealty, devotion, your life and blood to Keith of Privak and his kin, that the Gods might bar you from the Holy Lands should you break your vow?”

“I swear.” Shiro felt a chill crawl down his spine at the words, like there was actual magic within them now that it was the final moment. 

“You are wed. You are bound. From this moment onward you are the one-in-two.” Hovar touched his staff to each of their heads. “Go and make your offerings.” He backed out of the door, closing it soundly behind him. 

They stayed there utterly still, just breathing in the space, and then Keith turned and threw himself at Shiro. 

“Oh my god,” Shiro laughed. “We did it, we made it through them _all_.” 

“Only one thing left,” Keith said into his neck, chest heaving. 

“We could skip it,” Shiro said and licked a stripe up Keith’s neck. “God, I want you, fuck, _Keith_.” 

Keith moaned. “Shit. Shit, but we gotta. I _want_ to, it’s important Shiro. And I sure as hell did not sit through that explanation with Kolivan to _not_ do it.” 

Shiro pulled back and looked down at Keith—at his _husband_. “You like the idea don’t you? Kinky.”

“Shut up. You,” he poked at Shiro’s chest as he spoke, “have to get my blade first.” 

“Right. Okay.” Shiro braced his legs against the floor and scooped Keith up, making him squawk and throw his legs around Shiro’s waist. He chuckled and deposited Keith on the wide, plush bed, which was mostly an egregiously large mattress. Keith bounced when he landed, leaning back on his forearms to catch himself, legs splayed wide. 

Shiro must have been drooling because Keith snapped his fingers. “Hey, stay with me Shirogane, you have cutting to do before you ravish me.” 

“You’re lucky you’re cute and we’re married,” he said. Behind him on a heavily decorated table, flowers and jewels covering the surface, was Keith’s blade, along with two pen-like devices, a small burner, and an ornate carved box. He ignored those for the blade and took it gingerly in his hands. It was heavier than he thought it would be, the stone with the Marmoran mark glowing dully in the candlelight. When he turned to the bed, Keith had his back to him, flower-filled braid trailing down his back. 

Shiro let out a long breath and stepped up behind Keith. First were the flowers Lance had laced into his hair, so he set the knife down beside Keith and slowly started to take them out one by one, letting them fall to the floor and onto the bed. When he was done the braid was no longer pristine, leaves and rough parts of the flowers having caught on some of the intricate work. 

He forced himself to steady as he picked the knife back up. “Are you ready?” 

Keith sniffed, the sound faint even in the still of the room. His hand twitched like he wanted to touch his braid one last time, but he let it fall to his shoulder. “Yeah. Ready.” 

Shiro wasn’t as strong. He let his fingers trail over Keith’s hair from crown to tip, and wrapped the braid around his fist until it was the length Keith had asked for. He picked the knife back up and pressed it to the underside of the braid, the first few strands already breaking over the edge. Shiro counted to three in his head and sliced, the motion quick and precise. He thought that it might catch and he’d have to saw through some of Keith’s thick hair, but the blade was sharp as it looked. Keith’s hair fell, a few braids undoing themselves as it settled around his shoulders. 

Shiro held his breath and Keith’s braid until Keith reached back to touch the ends of his freshly cut hair. 

“Heh,” he laughed softly. He looked over his shoulder to Shiro, smiling. “It’s so light.” 

Shiro breathed and put the knife back on the table. He then took the leather cord there and carefully bound it around the cut end of Keith’s braid to preserve it. He set it carefully in the wooden box and turned back to Keith. 

On the bed Keith had turned around again and was running his fingers through his hair, dislodging the remaining braids and looking at the shortened locks in wonder. “I’ll probably need to clean up the ends,” he said. 

“You’re beautiful.” Shiro knelt down in front of him and put his head in Keith’s lap, resting there for a moment. Keith’s hands carded through his hair, nails scratching at his scalp. 

“Hey, c’mon. Let’s get out of these.” 

Slowly, tenderly, they undressed. Each layer was taken off with caresses and kisses, exposed skin trailed over by fingertips and wanton sighs. When they were naked Shiro couldn’t help but circle his hands around Keith’s hips and squeeze, wanting nothing more than to hold on and sink into his husband. 

Keith pushed Shiro back onto the bed and laid him out there, bare for the offering. 

“Ready?” He asked, voice barely above a whisper. 

Shiro nodded, not trusting his voice right then, and watched as Keith opened one of the warmers. 

There was a Galra tradition of carving runes into a mate’s skin. Once it had been a bloody affair, done with healing potions on hand and long, excruciating hours. It was meant to show trust between partners, and that even with a knife lodged in your skin by your mate, you believed in their devotion and they honored your trust. 

Luckily the tradition had turned to using a Galran wax instead, the marks made by the dye within which faded with time. The bond-marks were the only scar either of them would carry as mates. 

Keith heated and then carried the pen-like wax holder with care and leaned carefully over Shiro, starting with his left shoulder. 

The wax stung as it made contact with his skin. He briefly wondered how anyone with more body hair than him made it through this part, but the low chant from Keith’s lips drove all thought out of his head and blood straight to his cock. 

Runes of worship, hope, devotion, and a million others he could draw but forgot the meaning to were dripped over him in silver. They zigzagged down his chest, then his legs and back up to his hips. 

Keith let the holder reheat over the fire briefly while he surveyed his work. When the wax was just this side of liquid again he attached a thin nib and leaned over Shiro. His hand gently shielded Shiro’s eyes as the rune for love was painstakingly drawn over his left cheek. Keith moved to the other side and Shiro felt the lines of eternal sink into his skin. 

Finally Keith put the wax pen back and returned with a platinum band that he slipped over Shiro’s ring finger. He pressed a kiss over it when he was done and Shiro felt his heart swell.

He expected the wax to flake and crack as he sat up, but it was surprisingly pliant as he moved. The runes stayed put has he reenacted Keith’s previous motions, heating the wax pen over the flame, waiting for it to cool just enough to start pouring on Keith’s skin. 

He was laid out on the bed, bare, cock half hard already to match Shiro’s. Shiro used his right hand to pour, thankfully the hardware made it steadier than his left. Keith remained still and radiant through it all. If he noticed Shiro’s hand shaking as he covered his eyes, or slipped the platinum ring onto his finger, Keith said nothing. 

The gold on Keith’s skin was striking. He looked like a god of war, and Shiro couldn’t fathom how he was allowed to see him pliant, vulnerable, _soft_. 

Shiro backed up and set the wax pen down, turned off the burner, and stared at the man on the bed. 

Keith blinked his eyes open slowly, sitting up only just. “Shiro,” he beckoned, hand outstretched. Shiro was only a man before a vision of perfection, and he went. 

The wax caught and tugged where bare skin slid over bare skin. Shiro pushed his hands into Keith’s newly shortened hair and gripped, finally able to tangle his fingers in those locks without creating an impossible nest of tangles. 

Keith surged up and claimed his mouth, tongue slipping in with ease and ravishing his mouth. Legs pushed up from the bed and even with the move telegraphed Shiro let Keith roll them over, boxing him in with his arms and legs. 

“Fuck,” Keith hissed, his cock brushing against Shiro’s. “Fuck, you’re perfect.”

Shiro rutted up into him, grinding their hips together as Keith moved to devour his neck, sucking marks into skin where wax wasn’t. Shiro explored with hands, running his fingers over the smooth wax and pressing into spots on Keith’s body that made him moan and buck. He worshiped him like that, lips following his hands where he could, pressing them over the seals on Keith’s skin. 

Keith returned the favor, murmuring each of the runes names in Galran, the low rumble of it sinking into Shiro’s skin, tender and almost too much to bear. 

Beautiful. Resplendent. His husband was the wild thing in the old stories that claimed mere mortal men like Shiro, heart and soul. He said as much against Keith’s neck, and Keith keened when Shiro fisted their cocks together, pulling them off hard against each other. 

“Lube,” Keith rasped. “Lube under the pillow.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Shiro scrambled for it with his free hand and pressed it against Keith’s chest when he got it. “Who—”

“Let me, please, Shiro, I need to—”

Shiro spread his legs and canted his hips up. “Yeah, fuck, _yes_ , need you. Please, _Keith_.” 

Keith pulled back and spilled lube over his fingers, wasting no time in scooting back to ease one into Shiro. He mouthed over Shiro’s cock while he worked him open, leaving Shiro a writhing mess on the sheets. It was by no means slow, but Keith was thorough in breaking Shiro down, filling him up with nothing but pleasure until Shiro wanted to cry. 

Keith was three fingers deep, sucking delicately under Shiro’s head, when Shiro stopped him. “Keith, I can’t, I’m gonna— _hah_ —oh fuck I’m gonna come, shit, shit—”

Keith pulled back and wrapped a tight hand around Shiro’s base, stemming his orgasm, milking him through the sensation with his fingers undulating against his prostate. 

Keith didn’t let up, using the hand that had been on Shiro’s dick to lube up his cock. “That’s it, just for me, let me hear you, Takashi.” 

Shiro threw his head back and moaned, “Keith, _please_.”

Above him Keith snarled, easing his fingers out and sinking his cock into Shiro, the stretch making his eyes sting. Keith fucked slowly into him, setting an even, tortuous pace that left Shiro prone and whimpering. 

Keith braced himself over Shiro, nosing at the bond mark, teeth teasing the skin there. “Mine,” he growled, sharp canines tracing the mark. 

Shiro reached up and cradled Keith’s face, the smooth line of scar underneath the pads of his fingers. “Only mine,” he said. 

Keith snarled again and in a dizzying move hauled Shiro up and into his lap, seating Shiro further on his hard cock. 

“Ah!” Shiro threw his arms around Keith and shuffled his legs to get his bearing, the whole while Keith fucking up into him with vigor. “Ah-ah, Keith, oh god _fuck_.”

“So good, so tight,” Keith mouthed into his skin. He whimpered when Shiro clenched down on him, hips stuttered enough that Shiro had to keep the pace for a moment. 

Keith reached between them and started jerking Shiro off, fast and hard, twisting his wet palm over the head and squeezing back down. 

“Fuck, fuck Keith. Shit, shit, I’m gonna come, I’m gonna—oh _fuck Keith!”_ His balls tightened and then white hot pleasure spilled over him, come coating their chests. 

Keith’s pace went furious, fucking up into Shiro’s tight, abused heat until he yelped, motions stilling completely. 

Shiro was still orgasm-dazed, nuzzling into Keith’s neck. “Baby?” He slurred the question and only got another high whine in response. 

He tried to shift back and felt it. His rim was stretched and aching, more than it had been, and when Keith gasped for a last time he felt the heat pumping into him. 

“Oh shit.” He shuddered on Keith’s cock as he was filled. Keith slowly tipped them back, strength leeching out of him as he came, and _came_. 

Shiro was flat on his back, Keith twitching a little on top of him while the daze slowly left his eyes. Shiro groaned, shifting his hips and found that no, Keith pulling out was not going to be pleasant. 

“Baby?”

“Mmrphh.” Keith shifted and whined, flopping back down onto Shiro. 

Shiro huffed at the weight, growing sticky and oversensitive with Keith crushing every part of him. “Keith, baby, I don’t think it’s stuck, you gotta pull out.”

“Auuhgggg.” Keith pulled his head up and squinted at Shiro. “Should I be insulted by that?”

“No,” Shiro said, “but you’re heavy, and I’m starting to get achy.” 

Keith dropped his forehead on to Shiro’s peck and, with quite a bit of groaning, slowly eased himself out of Shiro. He’d been right, Keith’s knot pulling past his rim stung, but the pressure eased once it was out. 

Keith pressed a kiss over his heart and collapsed on his side. Absently he picked at a spot where the wax was starting to peel up, a deep red mark beneath it. “Want me to eat you out when I can move again?” He asked. 

“Fuck yes.” 

 

Late morning was filled with warm chatter, savory smells, and just this shy of too-warm mid-morning air. Keith and Shiro emerged from hiding to cheers and catcalls, the silken robes they wore over matching pants didn’t hide the wax marks on their skin, love bites, or their deep blushes.

Krolia and Allura presented them each with woven flower crowns, and they were led back to the main table from the night before where everyone came to offer food and well wishes. 

Vara scrambled up into Keith’s lap the moment they sat down. Keith grunted at the impact, but Vara was oblivious. “ _Pata_! I want some of the sweet cakes. Nana said I could only have two.” 

Keith laughed and ruffled her hair. “Well, it’s a special day, so maybe I can sneak you some. If Daddy is okay with it?” 

Shiro leaned over and nuzzled his cheek to Vara’s. “I think that’s all right, but only if you share with Daddy.” 

“Okay!” 

Keith gathered her closer and leaned into Shiro’s side, his husband’s arm warm around his back. The tent wasn’t as in pristine condition as it had been the night before, and the sleeping tents out beyond had somehow looked even worse off, but even with clear hangovers everyone was smiling. Allura and Lance were playing with the twins in the grass, food long forgotten. Krolia was curled into Kolivan, eating slowly and sending loving looks Keith and Shiro’s way. Hunk and Ryan were still flitting about with food, sneaking kisses when they thought no one was looking. Pidge had a camera out and was taking pictures of everything with Matt, neither of them looking innocent about the blackmail they were surely stock piling. Everywhere Keith looked was family, people he loved and who loved him back. 

Shiro pressed a kiss to his temple. “What’s got my husband so distracted out there?” 

Keith shook his head and kissed Shiro. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Shiro raised an eyebrow. 

“Nothing really.” Keith leaned his head against Shiro’s and looked at their beautiful daughter in his arms. “Just happy.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title of series from "Grey" by EXES.  
> Title of work from "Adore you" by Amy Shark  
> Title of chapter from "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell

**Author's Note:**

> Title of series from "Grey" by EXES.  
> Title of work from "Adore you" by Amy Shark  
> Title of chapter from "Army" by Ellie Goulding


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